THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

Blake  R-  Nevius 


THE  TWO  MAGICS 


THE    TWO    MAGICS 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW 
COVERING  END 


BY 


HENRY  JAMES 


AUTHOR  OF  "DAISY  MILLER,"    "THE  EUROPEANS' 
ETC.,  ETC. 


THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON :  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1898 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1898, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


NorfoooB  $WM 
J.  S.  Cu.Mnf?  *  Co.  -  Berwick  fc  Smith 

Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


PS 


THE  TURN   OF  THE   SCREW 


THE   TUKN   OF   THE   SCREW 

THE  story  had  held  us,  round  the  fire,  suffi- 
ciently breathless,  but  except  the  obvious  remark 
that  it  was  gruesome,  as,  on  Christmas  eve  in  an 
old  house,  a  strange  tale  should  essentially  be,  I 
remember  no  comment  uttered  till  somebody  hap- 
pened to  say  that  it  was  the  only  case  he  had  met 
in  which  such  a  visitation  had  fallen  on  a  child. 
The  case,  I  may  mention,  was  that  of  an  apparition 
in  just  such  an  old  house  as  had  gathered  us  for 
the  occasion  —  an  appearance,  of  a  dreadful  kind, 
to  a  little  boy  sleeping  in  the  room  with  his  mother 
and  waking  her  up  in  the  terror  of  it;  waking  her 
not  to  dissipate  his  dread  and  soothe  him  to  sleep 
again,  but  to  encounter  also,  herself,  before  she 
had  succeeded  in  doing  so,  the  same  sight  that  had 
shaken  him.  It  was  this  observation  that  drew 
from  Douglas  —  not  immediately,  but  later  in  the 
evening  —  a  reply  that  had  the  interesting  conse- 
quence to  which  I  call  attention.  Someone  else 
told  a  story  not  particularly  effective,  which  I  saw 
3 


4  THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCKEW 

he  was  not  following.  '  This  I  took  for  a  sign  that 
he  had  himself  something  to  produce  and  that  we 
should  only  have  to  wait.  We  waited  in  fact  till 
two  nights  later;  but  that  same  evening,  before 
we  scattered,  he  brought  out  what  was  in  his 
mind. 

"  I  quite  agree  —  in  regard  to  Griffin's  ghost,  or 
whatever  it  was  —  that  its  appearing  first  to  the 
little  boy,  at  so  tender  an  age,  adds  a  particular 
touch.  But  it's  not  the  first  occurrence  of  its 
charming  kind  that  I  know  to  have  involved  a 
child.  If  the  child  gives  the  effect  another  turn  of 
the  screw,  what  do  you  say  to  two  children ?" 

"  "We  say,  of  course,"  somebody  exclaimed,  "  that 
they  give  two  turns!  Also  that  we  want  to  hear 
about  them." 

I  can  see  Douglas  there  before  the  fire,  to  which 
he  had  got  up  to  present  his  back,  looking  down 
at  his  interlocutor  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets. 
"  Nobody  but  me,  till  now,  has  ever  heard.  It's 
quite  too  horrible."  This,  naturally,  was  declared 
by  several  voices  to  give  the  thing  the  utmost 
price,  and  our  friend,  with  quiet  art,  prepared  his 
triumph  by  turning  his  eyes  over  the  rest  of  us 
and  going  on :  "  It's  beyond  everything.  Nothing 
at  all  that  I  know  touches  it." 

*'  For  sheer  terror  ?  "  I  remember  asking. 


THE  TUKN  OF   THE   SCREW  5 

He  seemed  to  say  it  was  not  so  simple  as  that ; 
to  be  really  at  a  loss  how  to  qualify  it.  He 
passed  his  hand  over  his  eyes,  made  a  little  winc- 
ing grimace.  "  For  dreadful  —  dreadf ulness !  " 

"Oh,  how  delicious!  "  cried  one  of  the  women. 

He  took  no  notice  of  her;  he  looked  at  me,  but 
as  if,  instead  of  me,  he  saw  what  he  spoke  of. 
"For  general  uncanny  ugliness  and  horror  and 
pain." 

"  Well  then,"  I  said,  "  just  sit  right  down  and 
begin." 

He  turned  round  to  the  fire,  gave  a  kick  to  a 
log,  watched  it  an  instant.  Then  as  he  faced  us 
again :  "  I  can't  begin.  I  shall  have  to  send  to 
town."  There  was  a  unanimous  groan  at  this, 
and  much  reproach ;  after  which,  in  his  pre- 
occupied way,  he  explained.  "  The  story's 
written.  It's  in  a  locked  drawer  —  it  has  not 
been  out  for  years.  I  could  write  to  my  man  and 
enclose  the  key ;  he  could  send  down  the  packet 
as  he  finds  it."  It  was  to  me  in  particular  that 
he  appeared  to  propound  this  —  appeared  almost 
to  appeal  for  aid  not  to  hesitate.  He  had  broken 
a  thickness  of  ice,  the  formation  of  many  a 
winter  ;  had  had  his  reasons  for  a  long  silence. 
The  others  resented  postponement,  but  it  was 
just  his  scruples  that  charmed  me.  I  adjured 


b  THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW 

him  to  write  by  the  first  post  and  to  agree  with 
us  for  an  early  hearing ;  then  I  asked  him  if  the 
experience  in  question  had  been  his  own.  To 
this  his  answer  was  prompt.  "Oh,  thank  God, 
no!" 

"And  is  the  record  yours?  You  took  the 
thing  down?" 

"Nothing  but  the  impression.  I  took  that 
here  "  —  he  tapped  his  heart.  "  I've  never  lost  it." 

"  Then  your  manuscript ?  " 

"  Is  in  old,  faded  ink,  and  in  the  most  beauti- 
ful hand."  He  hung  fire  again.  "A  woman's. 
She  has  been  dead  these  twenty  years.  She 
sent  me  the  pages  in  question  before  she  died." 
They  were  all  listening  now,  and  of  course  there 
was  somebody  to  be  arch,  or  at  any  rate  to  draw 
the  inference.  But  if  he  put  the  inference  by 
without  a  smile  it  was  also  without  irritation. 
"  She  was  a  most  charming  person,  but  she  was 
ten  years  older  than  I.  She  was  my  sister's 
governess,"  he  quietly  said.  "She  was  the  most 
agreeable  woman  I've  ever  known  in  her  posi- 
tion ;  she  would  have  been  worthy  of  any  what- 
ever. It  was  long  ago,  and  this  episode  was  long 
before.  I  was  at  Trinity,  and  I  found  her  at 
home  on  my  coming  down  the  second  summer. 
I  was  much  there  that  year  —  it  was  a  beautiful 


THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  1 

one;  and  we  had,  in  her  off -hours,  some  strolls 
and  talks  in  the  garden  —  talks  in  which  she 
struck  me  as  awfully  clever  and  nice.  Oh  yes ; 
don't  grin  :  I  liked  her  extremely  and  am  glad  to 
this  day  to  think  she  liked  me  too.  If  she  hadn't 
she  wouldn't  have  told  me.  She  had  never  told 
anyone.  It  wasn't  simply  that  she  said  so,  but 
that  I  knew  she  hadn't.  I  was  sure  ;  I  could  see. 
You'll  easily  judge  why  when  you  hear." 

"  Because  the  thing  had  been  such  a  scare  ?  " 

He  continued  to  fix  me.  "  You'll  easily  judge," 
he  repeated  :  "  you  will." 

I  fixed  him  too.     "I  see.     She  was  in  love." 

He  laughed  for  the  first  time.  "You  are  acute. 
Yes,  she  was  in  love.  That  is,  she  had  been. 
That  came  out  —  she  couldn't  tell  her  story  with- 
out its  coming  out.  I  saw  it,  and  she  saw  I  saw 
it;  but  neither  of  us  spoke  of  it.  I  remember 
the  time  and  the  place  —  the  corner  of  the  lawn, 
the  shade  of  the  great  beeches  and  the  long, 
hot  summer  afternoon.  It  wasn't  a  scene  for  a 

shudder ;  but  oh !  "  He  quitted  the  fire 

and  dropped  back  into  his  chair. 

"You'll  receive  the  packet  Thursday  morn- 
ing ?  "  I  inquired. 

"Probably  not  till  the  second  post." 

"  Well  then  ;  after  dinner " 


8  THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW 

"You'll  all  meet  me  here?"  He  looked  us 
round  again.  "  Isn't  anybody  going  ?  "  It  was 
almost  the  tone  of  hope. 

"  Everybody  will  stay !  " 

"/will  —  and  I  will  I  "  cried  the  ladies  whose 
departure  had  been  fixed.  Mrs.  Griffin,  how- 
ever, expressed  the  need  for  a  little  more  light. 
"  Who  was  it  she  was  in  love  with  ?  " 

"The  story  will  tell,"  I  took  upon  myself  to 
reply. 

"  Oh,  I  can't  wait  for  the  story  !  " 

"The  story  won't  tell,"  said  Douglas;  "not  in 
any  literal,  vulgar  way." 

"  More's  the  pity,  then.  That's  the  only  way  I 
ever  understand." 

"  Won't  you  tell,  Douglas  ?  "  somebody  else  in- 
quired. 

He  sprang  to  his  feet  again.  "  Yes  —  to- 
morrow. Now  I  must  go  to  bed.  Good-night." 
And  quickly  catching  up  a  candlestick,  he  left 
us  slightly  bewildered.  From  our  end  of  the 
great  brown  hall  we  heard  his  step  on  the  stair ; 
whereupon  Mrs.  Griffin  spoke.  "  Well,  if  I  don't 
know  who  she  was  in  love  with,  I  know  who  he  was." 

"  She  was  ten  years  older,"  said  her  husband. 

"  liaison  de  plus — at  that  age  !  But  it's  rather 
nice,  his  long  reticence." 


THE  TURN  OF   THE   SCREW  9 

"  Forty  years  !  "  Griffin  put  in. 

"With  this  outbreak  at  last." 

"The  outbreak,"  I  returned,  "will  make  a 
tremendous  occasion  of  Thursday  night ; "  and 
everyone  so  agreed  with  me  that,  in  the  light 
of  it,  we  lost  all  attention  for  everything  else. 
The  last  story,  however  incomplete  and  like  the 
mere  opening  of  a  serial,  had  been  told ;  we 
handshook  and  "  candlestuck,"  as  somebody  said, 
and  went  to  bed. 

I  knew  the  next  day  that  a  letter  containing 
the  key  had,  by  the  first  post,  gone  off  to  his 
London  apartments ;  but  in  spite  of  —  or  perhaps 
just  on  account  of  —  the  eventual  diffusion  of 
this  knowledge  we  quite  let  him  alone  till  after 
dinner,  till  such  an  hour  of  the  evening,  in  fact, 
as  might  best  accord  with  the  kind  of  emotion 
on  which  our  hopes  were  fixed.  Then  he  became 
as  communicative  as  we  could  desire  and  indeed 
gave  us  his  best  reason  for  being  so.  We  had  it 
from  him  again  before  the  fire  in  the  hall,  as  we 
had  had  our  mild  wonders  of  the  previous  night. 
It  appeared  that  the  narrative  he  had  promised 
to  read  us  really  required  for  a  proper  intelli- 
gence a  few  words  of  prologue.  Let  me  say  here 
distinctly,  to  have  done  with  it,  that  this  narra- 
tive, from  an  exact  transcript  of  my  own  made 


10  THE  TURN   OP   THE   SCREW 

much  later,  is  what  I  shall  presently  give.  Poor 
Douglas,  before  his  death  —  when  it  was  in  sight 
—  committed  to  me  the  manuscript  that  reached 
him  on  the  third  of  these  days  and  that,  on  the 
same  spot,  with  immense  effect,  he  began  to  read 
to  our  hushed  little  circle  on  the  night  of  the 
fourth.  The  departing  ladies  who  had  said  they 
would  stay  didn't,  of  course,  thank  heaven,  stay : 
they  departed,  in  consequence  of  arrangements 
made,  in  a  rage  of  curiosity,  as  they  professed, 
produced  by  the  touches  with  which  he  had 
already  worked  us  up.  But  that  only  made  his 
little  final  auditory  more  compact  and  select,  kept 
it,  round  the  hearth,  subject  to  a  common  thrill. 

The  first  of  these  touches  conveyed  that  the 
written  statement  took  up  the  tale  at  a  point 
after  it  had,  in  a  manner,  begun.  The  fact  to 
be  in  possession  of  was  therefore  that  his  old 
friend,  the  youngest  of  several  daughters  of  a 
poor  country  parson,  had,  at  the  age  of  twenty, 
on  taking  service  for  the  first  time  in  the  school- 
room, come  up  to  London,  in  trepidation,  to  an- 
swer in  person  an  advertisement  that  had  already 
placed  her  in  brief  correspondence  with  the  adver- 
tiser. This  person  proved,  on  her  presenting 
herself,  for  judgment,  at  a  house  in  Harley 
Street,  that  impressed  her  as  vast  and  imposing 


THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW  11 

—  this  prospective  patron  proved  a  gentleman,  a 
bachelor  in  the  prime  of  life,  such  a  figure  as 
had  never  risen,  save  in  a  dream  or  an  old  novel, 
before  a  fluttered,  anxious  girl  out  of  a  Hamp- 
shire vicarage.     One  could  easily  fix  his  type ;  it 
never,  happily,  dies  out.     He  was  handsome  and 
bold  and  pleasant,  off-hand  and  gay  and  kind. 
He  struck  her,  inevitably,  as  gallant  and  splendid, 
but  what  took  her  most  of  all  and  gave  her  the 
courage  she  afterwards  showed  was  that  he  put 
the  whole  thing  to  her  as  a  kind  of  favour,  an 
obligation  he  should  gratefully  incur.     She  con- 
ceived him  as  rich,  but  as  fearfully  extravagant 

—  saw  him  all  in  a  glow  of  high  fashion,  of  good 
looks,  of  expensive  habits,  of  charming  ways  with 
women.     He  had  for  his  own  town  residence  a 
big  house  filled  with  the  spoils  of  travel  and  the 
trophies  of  the  chase ;  but  it  was  to  his  country 
home,   an   old    family   place    in    Essex,   that    he 
wished  her  immediately  to  proceed. 

He  had  been  left,  by  the  death  of  their  parents 
in  India,  guardian  to  a  small  nephew  and  a  small 
niece,  children  of  a  younger,  a  military  brother, 
whom  he  had  lost  two  years  before.  These 
children  were,  by  the  strangest  of  chances  for  a 
man  in  his  position,  —  a  lone  man  without  the 
right  sort  of  experience  or  a  grain  of  patience,  — 


12  THE  TUKN   OF  THE   SCEEW 

very  heavily  on  his  hands.  It  had  all  been  a 
great  worry  and,  on  his  own  part  doubtless,  a 
series  of  blunders,  but  he  immensely  pitied  the 
poor  chicks  and  had  done  all  he  could;  had  in 
particular  sent  them  down  to  his  other  house,  the 
proper  place  for  them  being  of  course  the  country, 
and  kept  them  there,  from  the  first,  with  the  best 
people  he  could  find  to  look  after  them,  parting 
even  with  his  own  servants  to  wait  on  them  and 
going  down  himself,  whenever  he  might,  to  see 
how  they  were  doing.  The  awkward  thing  was 
that  they  had  practically  no  other  relations  and 
that  his  own  affairs  took  up  all  his  time.  He  had 
put  them  in  possession  of  Ely,  which  was  healthy 
and  secure,  and  had  placed  at  the  head  of  their 
little  establishment  —  but  below  stairs  only  —  an 
excellent  woman,  Mrs.  Grose,  whom  he  was  sure 
his  visitor  would  like  and  who  had  formerly  been 
maid  to  his  mother.  She  was  now  housekeeper 
and  was  also  acting  for  the  time  as  superintendent 
to  the  little  girl,  of  whom,  without  children  of  her 
own,  she  was,  by  good  luck,  extremely  fond. 
There  were  plenty  of  people  to  help,  but  of  course 
the  young  lady  who  should  go  down  as  governess 
would  be  in  supreme  authority.  She  would  also 
have,  in  holidays,  to  look  after  the  small  boy,  who 
had  been  for  a  term  at  school — young  as  he  was 


THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCKEW  13 

to  be  sent,  but  what  else  could  be  done?  —  and 
who,  as  the  holidays  were  about  to  begin,  would 
be  back  from  one  day  to  the  other.  There  had 
been  for  the  two  children  at  first  a  young  lady 
whom  they  had  had  the  misfortune  to  lose.  She 
had  done  for  them  quite  beautifully  —  she  was  a 
most  respectable  person  —  till  her  death,  the  great 
awkwardness  of  which  had,  precisely,  left  no  alter- 
native but  the  school  for  little  Miles.  Mrs.  Grose, 
since  then,  in  the  way  of  manners  and  things,  had 
done  as  she  could  for  Flora  ;  and  there  were, 
further,  a  cook,  a  housemaid,  a  dairywoman,  an 
old  pony,  an  old  groom,  and  an  old  gardener,  all 
likewise  thoroughly  respectable. 

So  far  had  Douglas  presented  his  picture  when 
someone  put  a  question.  "And  what  did  the 
former  governess  die  of?  —  of  so  much  respecta- 
bility ?  " 

Our  friend's  answer  was  prompt.  "  That  will 
come  out.  I  don't  anticipate." 

"Excuse  me  —  I  thought  that  was  just  what 
you  are  doing." 

"In  her  successor's  place,"  I  suggested,  "I 
should  have  wished  to  learn  if  the  office  brought 
with  it " 

"Necessary  danger  to  life?"  Douglas  com- 
pleted my  thought.  "  She  did  wish  to  learn,  and 


14  THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW 

she  did  learn.  You  shall  hear  tomorrow  what 
she  learnt.  Meanwhile,  of  course,  the  prospect 
struck  her  as  slightly  grim.  She  was  young,  un- 
tried, nervous  :  it  was  a  vision  of  serious  duties 
and  little  company,  of  really  great  loneliness. 
She  hesitated  —  took  a  couple  of  days  to  con- 
sult and  consider.  But  the  salary  offered  much 
exceeded  her  modest  measure,  and  on  a  second 
interview  she  faced  the  music,  she  engaged."  And 
Douglas,  with  this,  made  a  pause  that,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  company,  moved  me  to  throw  in  — 

"  The  moral  of  which  was  of  course  the  seduc- 
tion exercised  by  the  splendid  young  man.  She 
succumbed  to  it." 

He  got  up  and,  as  he  had  done  the  night  before, 
went  to  the  fire,  gave  a  stir  to  a  log  with  his  foot, 
then  stood  a  moment  with  his  back  to  us.  "  She 
saw  him  only  twice." 

"  Yes,  but  that's  just  the  beauty  of  her  passion." 

A  little  to  my  surprise,  on  this,  Douglas  turned 
round  to  me.  "  It  was  the  beauty  of  it.  There 
were  others,"  he  went  on,  "who  hadn't  suc- 
cumbed. He  told  her  frankly  all  his  difficulty 
— that  for  several  applicants  the  conditions  had 
been  prohibitive.  They  were,  somehow,  simply 
afraid.  It  sounded  dull — it  sounded  strange ;  and 
all  the  more  so  because  of  his  main  condition." 


THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW  15 

"Which  was ?" 

"That  she  should  never  trouble  him — but 
never,  never:  neither  appeal  nor  complain  nor 
write  about  anything;  only  meet  all  questions 
herself,  receive  all  moneys  from  his  solicitor,  take 
the  whole  thing  over  and  let  him  alone.  She 
promised  to  do  this,  and  she  mentioned  to  me 
that  when,  for  a  moment,  disburdened,  delighted, 
he  held  her  hand,  thanking  her  for  the  sacrifice, 
she  already  felt  rewarded." 

"  But  was  that  all  her  reward  ? "  one  of  the 
ladies  asked. 

"  She  never  saw  him  again." 

"  Oh  !  "  said  the  lady  ;  which,  as  our  friend 
immediately  left  us  again,  was  the  only  other 
word  of  importance  contributed  to  the  subject 
till,  the  next  night,  by  the  corner  of  the  hearth, 
in  the  best  chair,  he  opened  the  faded  red  cover 
of  a  thin  old-fashioned  gilt-edged  album.  The 
whole  thing  took  indeed  more  nights  than  one, 
but  on  the  first  occasion  the  same  lady  put  an- 
other question.  "What  is  your  title?" 

"I  haven't  one." 

"  Oh,  I  have  !  "  I  said.  But  Douglas,  without 
heeding  me,  had  begun  to  read  with  a  fine  clear- 
ness that  was  like  a  rendering  to  the  ear  of  the 
beauty  of  his  author's  hand. 


I  KEMEMBER,  the  whole  beginning  as  a  succes- 
sion of  flights  and  drops,  a  little  see-saw  of  the 
right  throbs  and  the  wrong.  After  rising,  in 
town,  to  meet  his  appeal,  I  had  at  all  events  a 
couple  of  very  bad  days  —  found  myself  doubtful 
again,  felt  indeed  sure  I  had  made  a  mistake. 
In  this  state  of  mind  I  spent  the  long  hours  of 
bumping,  swinging  coach  that  carried  me  to  the 
stopping-place  at  which  I  was  to  be  met  by  a 
vehicle  from  the  house.  This  convenience,  I  was 
told,  had  been  ordered,  and  I  found,  toward  the 
close  of  the  June  afternoon,  a  commodious  fly  in 
waiting  for  me.  Driving  at  that  hour,  on  a 
lovely  day,  through  a  country  to  which  the  sum- 
mer sweetness  seemed  to  offer  me  a  friendly  wel- 
come, my  fortitude  mounted  afresh  and,  as  we 
turned  into  the  avenue,  encountered  a  reprieve 
that  was  probably  but  a  proof  of  the  point  to 
which  it  had  sunk.  I  suppose  I  had  expected, 
or  had  dreaded,  something  so  melancholy  that 
16 


THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  17 

what  greeted  me  was  a  good  surprise.  I  remem- 
ber as  a  most  pleasant  impression  the  broad,  clear 
front,  its  open  windows  and  fresh  curtains  and 
the  pair  of  maids  looking  out;  I  remember  the 
lawn  and  the  bright  flowers  and  the  crunch  of 
my  wheels  on  the  gravel  and  the  clustered  tree- 
tops  over  which  the  rooks  circled  and  cawed  in 
the  golden  sky.  The  scene  had  a  greatness 
that  made  it  a  different  affair  from  my  own 
scant  home,  and  there  immediately  appeared  at 
the  door,  with  a  little  girl  in  her  hand,  a  civil 
person  who  dropped  me  as  decent  a  curtsey  as 
if  I  had  been  the  mistress  or  a  distinguished 
visitor.  I  had  received  in  Harley  Street  a 
narrower  notion  of  the  place,  and  that,  as  I 
recalled  it,  made  me  think  the  proprietor  still 
more  of  a  gentleman,  suggested  that  what  I 
was  to  enjoy  might  be  something  beyond  his 
promise. 

I  had  no  drop  again  till  the  next  day,  for  I 
was  carried  triumphantly  through  the  following 
hours  by  my  introduction  to  the  younger  of  my 
pupils.  The  little  girl  who  accompanied  Mrs. 
Grose  appeared  to  me  on  the  spot  a  creature  so 
charming  as  to  make  it  a  great  fortune  to  have 
to  do  with  her.  She  was  the  most  beautiful 
child  I  had  ever  seen,  and  I  afterwards  won- 
c 


18  THE   TURN    OF   THE   SCREW 

dered  that  iny  employer  had  not  told  me  more 
of  her.  I  slept  little  that  night  —  I  was  too 
much  excited ;  and  this  astonished  me  too,  I 
recollect,  remained  with  me,  adding  to  my  sense 
of  the  liberality  with  which  I  was  treated.  The 
large,  impressive  room,  one  of  the  best  in  the 
house,  the  great  state  bed,  as  I  almost  felt  it, 
the  full,  figured  draperies,  the  long  glasses  in 
which,  for  the  first  time,  I  could  see  myself 
from  head  to  foot,  all  struck  me  —  like  the  ex- 
traordinary charm  of  my  small  charge  —  as  so 
many  things  thrown  in.  It  was  thrown  in  as 
well,  from  the  first  moment,  that  I  should  get 
on  with  Mrs.  Grose  in  a  relation  over  which,  on 
my  way,  in  the  coach,  I  fear  I  had  rather 
brooded.  The  only  thing  indeed  that  in  this 
early  outlook  might  have  made  me  shrink  again 
was  the  clear  circumstance  of  her  being  so  glad 
to  see  me.  I  perceived  within  half  an  hour 
that  she  was  so  glad  —  stout,  simple,  plain, 
clean,  wholesome  woman  —  as  to  be  positively 
on  her  guard  against  showing  it  too  much.  I 
wondered  even  then  a  little  why  she  should 
wish  not  to  show  it,  and  that,  with  reflection, 
with  suspicion,  might  of  course  have  made  me 
uneasy. 

But  it  was  a  comfort  that  there  could   be  no 


THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  19 

uneasiness  in  a  connection  with  anything  so 
beatific  as  the  radiant  image  of  my  little  girl, 
the  vision  of  whose  angelic  beauty  had  proba- 
bly more  than  anything  else  to  do  with  the 
restlessness  that,  before  morning,  made  me  sev- 
eral times  rise  and  wander  about  my  room  to 
take  in  the  whole  picture  and  prospect ;  to 
watch,  from  my  open  window,  the  faint  summer 
dawn,  to  look  at  such  portions  of  the  rest  of 
the  house  as  I  could  catch,  and  to  listen,  while, 
in  the  fading  dusk,  the  first  birds  began  to 
twitter,  for  the  possible  recurrence  of  a  sound 
or  two,  less  natural  and  not  without,  but  within, 
that  I  had  fancied  I  heard.  There  had  been  a 
moment  when  I  believed  I  recognised,  faint  and 
far,  the  cry  of  a  child ;  there  had  been  another 
when  I  found  myself  just  consciously  starting 
as  at  the  passage,  before  my  door,  of  a  light 
footstep.  But  these  fancies  were  not  marked 
enough  not  to  be  thrown  off,  and  it  is  only  in 
the  light,  or  the  gloom,  I  should  rather  say,  of 
other  and  subsequent  matters  that  they  now 
come  back  to  me.  To  watch,  teach,  "  form " 
little  Flora  would  too  evidently  be  the  making 
of  a  happy  and  useful  life.  It  had  been  agreed 
between  us  downstairs  that  after  this  first  occa- 
sion I  should  have  her  as  a  matter  of  course  at 


20  THE  TURN   OP  THE  SCREW 

night,  her  small  white  bed  being  already  ar- 
ranged, to  that  end,  in  my  room.  What  I  had 
undertaken  was  the  whole  care  of  her,  and  she 
had  remained,  just  this  last  time,  with  Mrs. 
Grose  only  as  an  effect  of  our  consideration  for 
my  inevitable  strangeness  and  her  natural  timid- 
ity. In  spite  of  this  timidity  —  which  the  child 
herself,  in  the  oddest  way  in  the  world,  had 
been  perfectly  frank  and  brave  about,  allowing 
it,  without  a  sign  of  uncomfortable  conscious- 
ness, with  the  deep,  sweet  serenity  indeed  of 
one  of  Raphael's  holy  infants,  to  be  discussed, 
to  be  imputed  to  her  and  to  determine  us  —  I 
felt  quite  sure  she  would  presently  like  me. 
It  was  part  of  what  I  already  liked  Mrs.  Grose 
herself  for,  the  pleasure  I  could  see  her  feel  in 
my  admiration  and  wonder  as  I  sat  at  supper 
with  four  tall  candles  and  with  my  pupil,  in  a 
high  chair  and  a  bib,  brightly  facing  me,  be- 
tween them,  over  bread  and  milk.  There  were 
naturally  things  that  in  Flora's  presence  could 
pass  between  us  only  as  prodigious  and  grati- 
fied looks,  obscure  and  roundabout  allusions. 

"And  the  little  boy  —  does  he  look  like  her? 
Is  he  too  so  very  remarkable  ?  " 

One  wouldn't  flatter  a  child.  "  Oh,  Miss,  most 
remarkable.  If  you  think  well  of  this  one !  "  — 


THE  TUKN   OF   THE  SCEEW  21 

and  she  stood  there  with  a  plate  in  her  hand, 
beaming  at  our  companion,  who  looked  from  one 
of  us  to  the  other  with  placid  heavenly  eyes  that 
contained  nothing  to  check  us. 

"Yes;  if  I  do ?" 

"You  will  be  carried  away  by  the  little  gen- 
tleman !  " 

"Well,  that,  I  think,  is  what  I  came  for  — to 
be  carried  away.  I'm  afraid,  however,"  I  remem- 
ber feeling  the  impulse  to  add,  "  I'm  rather  easily 
carried  away.  I  was  carried  away  in  London !  " 

I  can  still  see  Mrs.  Grose's  broad  face  as  she 
took  this  in.  "  In  Harley  Street  ?  " 

"In  Harley  Street." 

"Well,  Miss,  you're  not  the  first  —  and  you 
won't  be  the  last." 

"  Oh,  I've  no  pretension,"  I  could  laugh,  "  to 
being  the  only  one.  My  other  pupil,  at  any  rate, 
as  I  understand,  comes  back  tomorrow  ?  " 

"Not  tomorrow  —  Friday,  Miss.  He  arrives, 
as  you  did,  by  the  coach,  under  care  of  the  guard, 
and  is  to  be  met  by  the  same  carriage." 

I  forthwith  expressed  that  the  proper  as  well 
as  the  pleasant  and  friendly  thing  would  be  there- 
fore that  on  the  arrival  of  the  public  conveyance 
I  should  be  in  waiting  for  him  with  his  little 
sister ;  an  idea  in  which  Mrs.  Grose  concurred 


22  THE   TURN   OF    THE   SCREW 

so  heartily  that  I  somehow  took  her  manner  as 
a  kind  of  comforting  pledge  —  never  falsified, 
thank  heaven !  —  that  we  should  on  every  ques- 
tion be  quite  at  one.  Oh,  she  was  glad  I  was 
there ! 

What  I  felt  the  next  day  was,  I  suppose, 
nothing  that  could  be  fairly  called  a  reaction 
from  the  cheer  of  my  arrival ;  it  was  probably 
at  the  most  only  a  slight  oppression  produced 
by  a  fuller  measure  of  the  scale,  as  I  walked 
round  them,  gazed  up  at  them,  took  them  in, 
of  my  new  circumstances.  They  had,  as  it  were, 
an  extent  and  mass  for  which  I  had  not  been 
prepared  and  in  the  presence  of  which  I  found 
myself,  freshly,  a  little  scared  as  well  as  a  little 
proud.  Lessons,  in  this  agitation,  certainly  suf- 
fered some  delay ;  I  reflected  that  my  first  duty 
was,  by  the  gentlest  arts  I  could  contrive,  to  win 
the  child  into  the  sense  of  knowing  me.  I  spent 
the  day  with  her  out  of  doors ;  I  arranged  with 
her,  to  her  great  satisfaction,  that  it  should  be 
she,  she  only,  who  might  show  me  the  place. 
She  showed  it  step  by  step  and  room  by  room 
and  secret  by  secret,  with  droll,  delightful,  child- 
ish talk  about  it  and  with  the  result,  in  half  an 
hour,  of  our  becoming  immense  friends.  Young 
as  she  was,  I  was  struck,  throughout  our  little 


THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW  23 

tour,  with  her  confidence  and  courage  with  the 
way,  in  empty  chambers  and  dull  corridors,  on 
crooked  staircases  that  made  me  pause  and  even 
on  the  summit  of  an  old  machicolated  square 
tower  that  made  me  dizzy,  her  morning  music, 
her  disposition  to  tell  me  so  many  more  things 
than  she  asked,  rang  out  and  led  me  on.  I  have 
not  seen  Ely  since  the  day  I  left  it,  and  I  dare 
say  that  to  my  older  and  more  informed  eyes  it 
would  now  appear  sufficiently  contracted.  But 
as  my  little  conductress,  with  her  hair  of  gold 
and  her  frock  of  blue,  danced  before  me  round 
corners  and  pattered  down  passages,  I  had  the 
view  of  a  castle  of  romance  inhabited  by  a  rosy 
sprite,  such  a  place  as  would  somehow,  for  di- 
version of  the  young  idea,  take  all  colour  out 
of  storybooks  and  fairy-tales.  Wasn't  it  just 
a  storybook  over  which  I  had  fallen  a-doze  and 
a-dream?  No;  it  was  a  big,  ugly,  antique,  but 
convenient  house,  embodying  a  few  features  of 
a  building  still  older,  half  replaced  and  half  uti- 
lised, in  which  I  had  the  fancy  of  our  being 
almost  as  lost  as  a  handful  of  passengers  in  a 
great  drifting  ship.  Well,  I  was,  strangely,  at 
the  helm  ! 


II 


THIS  came  home  to  me  when,  two  days  later, 
I  drove  over  with  Flora  to  meet,  as  Mrs.  Grose 
said,  the  little  gentleman ;  and  all  the  more  for 
an  incident  that,  presenting  itself  the  second 
evening,  had  deeply  disconcerted  me.  The  first 
day  had  been,  on  the  whole,  as  I  have  expressed, 
reassuring ;  but  I  was  to  see  it  wind  up  in  keen 
apprehension.  The  postbag,  that  evening,  —  it 
came  late,  —  contained  a  letter  for  me,  which, 
however,  in  the  hand  of  my  employer,  I  found 
to  be  composed  but  of  a  few  words  enclosing 
another,  addressed  to  himself,  with  a  seal  still 
unbroken.  "  This,  I  recognise,  is  from  the  head- 
master, and  the  head-master's  an  awful  bore. 
Read  him,  please ;  deal  with  him ;  but  mind 
you  don't  report.  Not  a  word.  I'm  off  !  "  I 
broke  the  seal  with  a  great  effort  —  so  great 
a  one  that  I  was  a  long  time  coming  to  it ;  took 
the  unopened  missive  at  last  up  to  my  room  and 
only  attacked  it  just  before  going  to  bed.  I 
24 


THE  TURN  OF   THE  SCREW  25 

had  better  have  let  it  wait  till  morning,  for  it 
gave  me  a  second  sleepless  night.  With  no 
counsel  to  take,  the  next  day,  I  was  full  of  dis- 
tress; and  it  finally  got  so  the  better  of  me  that 
I  determined  to  open  myself  at  least  to  Mrs. 
Grose. 

"What  does  it  mean?  The  child's  dismissed 
his  school." 

She  gave  me  a  look  that  I  remarked  at  the 
moment ;  then,  visibly,  with  a  quick  blankness, 
seemed  to  try  to  take  it  back.  "  But  aren't  they 
all ?" 

"  Sent  home  —  yes.  But  only  for  the  holidays. 
Miles  may  never  go  back  at  all." 

Consciously,  under  my  attention,  she  reddened. 
"  They  won't  take  him  ?  " 

"They  absolutely  decline." 

At  this  she  raised  her  eyes,  which  she  had 
turned  from  me  ;  I  saw  them  fill  with  good  tears. 
"What  has  he  done?" 

I  hesitated ;  then  I  judged  best  simply  to  hand 
her  my  letter  —  which,  however,  had  the  effect 
of  making  her,  without  taking  it,  simpty  put  her 
hands  behind  her.  She  shook  her  head  sadly. 
"  Such  things  are  not  for  me,  Miss." 

My  counsellor  couldn't  read  !  I  winced  at  my 
mistake,  which  I  attenuated  as  I  could,  and 


26  THE  TURN   OF  THE   SCREW 

opened  my  letter  again  to  repeat  it  to  her  ;  then, 
faltering  in  the  act  and  folding  it  up  once  more, 
I  put  it  back  in  my  pocket.  "  Is  he  really  bad  ?  " 

The  tears  were  still  in  her  eyes.  "  Do  the  gen- 
tlemen say  so  ?  " 

"They  go  into  no  particulars.  They  simply 
express  their  regret  that  it  should  be  impossible 
to  keep  him.  That  can  have  only  one  meaning." 
Mrs.  Grose  listened  with  dumb  emotion ;  she 
forbore  to  ask  me  what  this  meaning  might  be ; 
so  that,  presently,  to  put  the  thing  with  some 
coherence  and  with  the  mere  aid  of  her  presence 
to  my  own  mind,  I  went  on :  "  That  he's  an 
injury  to  the  others." 

At  this,  with  one  of  the  quick  turns  of  simple 
folk,  she  suddenly  flamed  up.  "  Master  Miles ! 
him  an  injury  ?  " 

There  was  such  a  flood  of  good  faith  in  it  that, 
though  I  had  not  yet  seen  the  child,  my  very 
fears  made  me  jump  to  the  absurdity  of  the  idea. 
I  found  myself,  to  meet  my  friend  the  better, 
offering  it,  on  the  spot,  sarcastically.  "To  his 
poor  little  innocent  mates !  " 

"  It's  too  dreadful,"  cried  Mrs.  Grose,  "  to  say 
such  cruel  things  !  Why,  he's  scarce  ten  years 
old." 

"Yes,  yes  ;  it  would  be  incredible." 


THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  27 

She  was  evidently  grateful  for  such  a  profes- 
sion. "  See  him,  Miss,  first.  Then  believe  it !  " 
I  felt  forthwith  a  new  impatience  to  see  him  ; 
it  was  the  beginning  of  a  curiosity  that,  for  all 
the  next  hours,  was  to  deepen  almost  to  pain. 
Mrs.  Grose  was  aware,  I  could  judge,  of  what 
she  had  produced  in  me,  and  she  followed  it  up 
with  assurance.  "You  might  as  well  believe  it 
of  the  little  lady.  Bless  her,"  she  added  the 
next  moment  —  "  look  at  her !  " 

I  turned  and  saw  that  Flora,  whom,  ten  min- 
utes before,  I  had  established  in  the  schoolroom 
with  a  sheet  of  white  paper,  a  pencil,  and  a  copy 
of  nice  "round  O's,"  now  presented  herself  to 
view  at  the  open  door.  She  expressed  in  her 
little  way  an  extraordinary  detachment  from  dis- 
agreeable duties,  looking  to  me,  however,  with  a 
great  childish  light  that  seemed  to  offer  it  as  a 
mere  result  of  the  affection  she  had  conceived 
for  my  person,  which  had  rendered  necessary 
that  she  should  follow  me.  I  needed  nothing 
more  than  this  to  feel  the  full  force  of  Mrs. 
Grose's  comparison,  and,  catching  my  pupil  in 
my  arms,  covered  her  with  kisses  in  which  there 
was  a  sob  of  atonement. 

None  the  less,  the  rest  of  the  day,  I  watched 
for  further  occasion  to  approach  my  colleague, 


28  THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW 

especially  as,  toward  evening,  I  began  to  fancy 
she  rather  sought  to  avoid  me.  I  overtook  her, 
I  remember,  on  the  staircase ;  we  went  down 
together,  and  at  the  bottom  I  detained  her,  hold- 
ing her  there  with  a  hand  on  her  arm.  "  I  take 
what  you  said  to  me  at  noon  as  a  declaration 
that  you've  never  known  him  to  be  bad." 

She  threw  back  her  head  ;  she  had  clearly,  by 
this  time,  and  very  honestly,  adopted  an  attitude. 
"  Oh,  never  known  him  —  I  don't  pretend  that !  " 

I  was  upset  again.  "Then  you  have  known 
him ?" 

"Yes  indeed,  Miss,  thank  God !  " 

On  reflection  I  accepted  this.  "  You  mean  that 
a  boy  who  never  is ?  " 

"  Is  no  boy  for  me  !  " 

I  held  her  tighter.  "  You  like  them  with  the 
spirit  to  be  naughty  ?  "  Then,  keeping  pace  with 
her  answer,  "So  do  I !  "  I  eagerly  brought  out. 
"  But  not  to  the  degree  to  contaminate " 

"To  contaminate?"  —  my  big  word  left  her  at 
a  loss.  I  explained  it.  "  To  corrupt." 

She  stared,  taking  my  meaning  in ;  but  it  pro- 
duced in  her  an  odd  laugh.  "  Are  you  afraid 
he'll  corrupt  you?"  She  put  the  question  with 
such  a  fine  bold  humour  that,  with  a  laugh,  a 
little  silly  doubtless,  to  match  her  own,  I  gave 


THE  TURN   OF  THE   SCREW  29 

way  for  the  time  to  the  apprehension  of  ridi- 
cule. 

But  the  next  day,  as  the  hour  for  my  drive 
approached,  I  cropped  up  in  another  place. 
"  What  was  the  lady  who  was  here  before  ?  " 

"The  last  governess?  She  was  also  young 
and  pretty  —  almost  as  young  and  almost  as 
pretty,  Miss,  even  as  you." 

"Ah,  then,  I  hope  her  youth  and  her  beauty 
helped  her !  "  I  recollect  throwing  off.  "  He 
seems  to  like  us  young  and  pretty  ! " 

"  Oh,  he  did"  Mrs.  Grose  assented  :  " it  was 
the  way  he  liked  everyone  !  "  She  had  no  sooner 
spoken  indeed  than  she  caught  herself  up.  "  I 
mean  that's  his  way  —  the  master's." 

I  was  struck.  "  But  of  whom  did  you  speak 
first?" 

She  looked  blank,  but  she  coloured.  "Why, 
of  Am." 

"Of  the  master?" 

"Of  who  else?" 

There  was  so  obviously  no  one  else  that  the 
next  moment  I  had  lost  my  impression  of  her 
having  accidentally  said  more  than  she  meant ; 
and  I  merely  asked  what  I  wanted  to  know. 
"Did  she  see  anything  in  the  boy ?" 

"That  wasn't  right?     She  never  told  me." 


30  THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW 

I  had  a  scruple,  but  I  overcame  it.  "  Was 
she  careful  —  particular  ?  " 

Mrs.  Grose  appeared  to  try  to  be  conscien- 
tious. "About  some  things  —  yes." 

"But  not  about  all?" 

Again  she  considered.  "Well,  Miss  —  she's 
gone.  I  won't  tell  tales." 

"  I  quite  understand  your  feeling,"  I  hastened 
to  reply ;  but  I  thought  it,  after  an  instant,  not 
opposed  to  this  concession  to  pursue :  "  Did  she 
die  here?" 

"No  —  she  went  off." 

I  don't  know  what  there  was  in  this  brevity 
of  Mrs.  Grose's  that  struck  me  as  ambiguous. 
"Went  off  to  die?"  Mrs.  Grose  looked  straight 
out  of  the  window,  but  I  felt  that,  hypothetically, 
I  had  a  right  to  know  what  young  persons  engaged 
for  Bly  were  expected  to  do.  "She  was  taken  ill, 
you  mean,  and  went  home  ?  " 

"She  was  not  taken  ill,  so  far  as  appeared,  in 
this  house.  She  left  it,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  to 
go  home,  as  she  said,  for  a  short  holiday,  to  which 
the  time  she  had  put  in  had  certainly  given  her  a 
right.  We  had  then  a  young  woman  —  a  nurse- 
maid who  had  stayed  on  and  who  was  a  good  girl 
and  clever ;  and  she  took  the  children  altogether 
for  the  interval.  But  our  young  lady  never  came 


THE  TURN   OP   THE  SCREW  31 

back,  and  at  the  very  moment  I  was  expecting  her 
I  heard  from  the  master  that  she  was  dead." 
I  turned  this  over.     "  But  of  what  ?  " 
"  He  never  told  me  !     But  please,  Miss,"  said 
Mrs.  Grose,  "I  must  get  to  my  work." 


Ill 


HER  thus  turning  her  back  on  me  was  fortu- 
nately not,  for  iny  just  preoccupations,  a  snub  that 
could  check  the  growth  of  our  mutual  esteem. 
We  met,  after  I  had  brought  home  little  Miles, 
more  intimately  than  ever  on  the  ground  of  my 
stupefaction,  my  general  emotion  :  so  monstrous 
was  I  then  ready  to  pronounce  it  that  such  a  child 
as  had  now  been  revealed  to  me  should  be  under 
an  interdict.  I  was  a  little  late  on  the  scene,  and 
I  felt,  as  he  stood  wistfully  looking  out  for  me 
before  the  door  of  the  inn  at  which  the  coach  had 
put  him  down,  that  I  had  seen  him,  on  the  instant, 
without  and  within,  in  the  great  glow  of  fresh- 
ness, the  same  positive  fragrance  of  purity,  in 
which  I  had,  from  the  first  moment,  seen  his  little 
sister.  He  was  incredibly  beautiful,  and  Mrs. 
Grose  had  put  her  finger  on  it :  everything  but  a 
sort  of  passion  of  tenderness  for  him  was  swept 
away  by  his  presence.  What  I  then  and  there 
took  him  to  my  heart  for  was  something  divine 


THE  TUKN   OF   THE   SCKEW  33 

that  I  have  never  found  to  the  same  degree  in 
any  child  —  his  indescribable  little  air  of  knowing 
nothing  in  the  world  but  love.  It  would  have 
been  impossible  to  carry  a  bad  name  with  a  greater 
sweetness  of  innocence,  and  by  the  time  I  had  got 
back  to  Ely  with  him  I  remained  merely  bewil- 
dered —  so  far,  that  is,  as  I  was  not  outraged  —  by 
the  sense  of  the  horrible  letter  locked  up  in  my 
room,  in  a  drawer.  As  soon  as  I  could  compass  a 
private  word  with  Mrs.  Grose  I  declared  to  her 
that  it  was  grotesque. 

She  promptly  understood  me.  "  You  mean  the 
cruel  charge ?  " 

"  It  doesn't  live  an  instant.  My  dear  woman, 
look  at  him  !  " 

She  smiled  at  my  pretension  to  have  discovered 
his  charm.  "  I  assure  you,  Miss,  I  do  nothing 
else  !  What  will  you  say,  then  ? "  she  imme- 
diately added. 

"In  answer  to  the  letter?"  I  had  made  up 
my  mind.  "Nothing." 

"  And  to  his  uncle  ?  " 

I  was  incisive.     "Nothing." 

"  And  to  the  boy  himself  ?  " 

I  was  wonderful.     "Nothing." 

She  gave  with  her  apron  a  great  wipe  to  her 
mouth.  "  Then  I'll  stand  by  you.  We'll  see  it  out. " 


34  THE   TURN   OP   THE   SCREW 

"  We'll  see  it  out  !  "  I  ardently  echoed,  giving 
her  my  hand  to  make  it  a  vow. 

She  held  me  there  a  moment,  then  whisked  up 
her  apron  again  with  her  detached  hand.  "  Would 
you  mind,  Miss,  if  I  used  the  freedom " 

"  To  kiss  me  ?  No  !  "  I  took  the  good  creat- 
ure in  my  arms  and,  after  we  had  embraced  like 
sisters,  felt  still  more  fortified  and  indignant. 

This,  at  all  events,  was  for  the  time  :  a  time  so 
full  that,  as  I  recall  the  way  it  went,  it  reminds 
me  of  all  the  art  I  now  need  to  make  it  a  little 
distinct.  What  I  look  back  at  with  amazement 
is  the  situation  I  accepted.  I  had  undertaken, 
with  my  companion,  to  see  it  out,  and  I  was  under 
a  charm,  apparently,  that  could  smooth  away  the 
extent  and  the  far  and  difficult  connections  of 
such  an  effort.  I  was  lifted  aloft  on  a  great  wave 
of  infatuation  and  pity.  I  found  it  simple,  in  my 
ignorance,  my  confusion,  and  perhaps  my  conceit, 
to  assume  that  I  could  deal  with  a  boy  whose  edu- 
cation for  the  world  was  all  on  the  point  of  begin- 
ning. I  am  unable  even  to  remember  at  this  day 
what  proposal  I  framed  for  the  end  of  his  holidays 
and  the  resumption  of  his  studies.  Lessons  with 
me,  indeed,  that  charming  summer,  we  all  had  a 
theory  that  he  was  to  have  ;  but  I  now  feel  that,  for 
weeks,  the  lessons  must  have  been  rather  my  own. 


THE   TURN    OF   THE   SCREW  35 

I  learnt  something  —  at  first  certainly  —  that  had 
not  been  one  of  the  teachings  of  my  small,  smoth- 
ered life  ;  learnt  to  be  amused,  and  even  amusing, 
and  not  to  think  for  the  morrow.  It  was  the  first 
time,  in  a  manner,  that  I  had  known  space  and  air 
and  freedom,  all  the  music  of  summer  and  all  the 
mystery  of  nature.  And  then  there  was  consid- 
eration—  and  consideration  was  sweet.  Oh,  it 
was  a  trap  —  not  designed,  but  deep  —  to  my 
imagination,  to  my  delicacy,  perhaps  to  my  van- 
ity ;  to  whatever,  in  me,  was  most  excitable.  The 
best  way  to  picture  it  all  is  to  say  that  I  was  off 
my  guard.  They  gave  me  so  little  trouble  —  they 
were  of  a  gentleness  so  extraordinary.  I  used  to 
speculate  —  but  even  this  with  a  dim  disconnect- 
edness —  as  to  how  the  rough  future  (for  all  fut- 
ures are  rough  !)  would  handle  them  and  might 
bruise  them.  They  had  the  bloom  of  health  and 
happiness  ;  and  yet,  as  if  I  had  been  in  charge  of 
a  pair  of  little  grandees,  of  princes  of  the  blood, 
for  whom  everything,  to  be  right,  would  have  to 
be  enclosed  and  protected,  the  only  form  that,  in 
my  fancy,  the  after-years  could  take  for  them  was 
that  of  a  romantic,  a  really  royal  extension  of 
the  garden  and  the  park.  It  may  be,  of  course, 
above  all,  that  what  suddenly  broke  into  this 
gives  the  previous  time  a  charm  of  stillness  — 


36  THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW 

that  hush  in  which  something  gathers  or  crouches. 
The  change  was  actually  like  the  spring  of  a 
beast. 

In  the  first  weeks  the  days  were  long ;  they 
often,  at  their  finest,  gave  me  what  I  used  to  call 
my  own  hour,  the  hour  when,  for  my  pupils,  tea- 
time  and  bed-time  having  come  and  gone,  I  had, 
before  my  final  retirement,  a  small  interval  alone. 
Much  as  I  liked  my  companions,  this  hour  was 
the  thing  in  the  day  I  liked  most ;  and  I  liked 
it  best  of  all  when,  as  the  light  faded  —  or 
rather,  I  should  say,  the  day  lingered  and  the 
last  calls  of  the  last  birds  sounded,  in  a  flushed 
sky,  from  the  old  trees  —  I  could  take  a  turn 
into  the  grounds  and  enjoy,  almost  with  a  sense 
of  property  that  amused  and  nattered  me,  the 
beauty  and  dignity  of  the  place.  It  was  a 
pleasure  at  these  moments  to  feel  myself  tran- 
quil and  justified ;  doubtless,  perhaps,  also  to 
reflect  that  by  my  discretion,  my  quiet  good 
sense  and  general  high  propriety,  I  was  giving 
pleasure  —  if  he  ever  thought  of  it !  —  to  the 
person  to  whose  pressure  I  had  responded. 
What  I  was  doing  was  what  he  had  earnestly 
hoped  and  directly  asked  of  me,  and  that  I 
could,  after  all,  do  it  proved  even  a  greater  joy 
than  I  had  expected.  I  dare  say  I  fancied 


THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCKEW  37 

myself,  in  short,  a  remarkable  young  woman 
and  took  comfort  in  the  faith  that  this  would 
more  publicly  appear.  Well,  I  needed  to  be  re- 
markable to  offer  a  front  to  the  remarkable 
things  that  presently  gave  their  first  sign. 

It  was  plump,  one  afternoon,  in  the  middle  of 
my  very  hour  :  the  children  were  tucked  away 
and  I  had  come  out  for  my  stroll.  One  of  the 
thoughts  that,  as  I  don't  in  the  least  shrink 
now  from  noting,  used  to  be  with  me  in  these 
wanderings  was  that  it  would  be  as  charming 
as  a  charming  story  suddenly  to  meet  someone. 
Someone  would  appear  there  at  the  turn  of  a 
path  and  would  stand  before  me  and  smile  and 
approve.  I  didn't  ask  more  than  that  —  I  only 
asked  that  he  should  know;  and  the  only  way 
to  be  sure  he  knew  would  be  to  see  it,  and  the 
kind  light  of  it,  in  his  handsome  face.  That 
was  exactly  present  to  me  —  by  which  I  mean 
the  face  was  —  when,  on  the  first  of  these  occa- 
sions, at  the  end  of  a  long  June  day,  I  stopped 
short  on  emerging  from  one  of  the  plantations 
and  coming  into  view  of  the  house.  What  ar- 
rested me  on  the  spot  —  and  with  a  shock  much 
greater  than  any  vision  had  allowed  for  —  was 
the  sense  that  my  imagination  had,  in  a  flash, 
turned  real.  He  did  stand  there  !  —  but  high 


38  THE   TURN    OF   THE   SCREW 

up,  beyond  the  lawn  and  at  the  very  top  of  the 
tower  to  which,  on  that  first  morning,  little 
Flora  had  conducted  me.  This  tower  was  one 
of  a  pair  —  square,  incongruous,  crenelated  struct- 
ures—  that  were  distinguished,  for  some  reason, 
though  I  could  see  little  difference,  as  the  new 
and  the  old.  They  flanked  opposite  ends  of  the 
house  and  were  probably  architectural  absurdi- 
ties, redeemed  in  a  measure  indeed  by  not  being 
wholly  disengaged  nor  of  a  height  too  preten- 
tious, dating,  in  their  gingerbread  antiquity, 
from  a  romantic  revival  that  was  already  a  re- 
spectable past.  I  admired  them,  had  fancies 
about  them,  for  we  could  all  profit  in  a  degree, 
especially  when  they  loomed  through  the  dusk, 
by  the  grandeur  of  their  actual  battlements ; 
yet  it  was  not  at  such  an  elevation  that  the 
figure  I  had  so  often  invoked  seemed  most  in 
place. 

It  produced  in  me,  this  figure,  in  the  clear  twi- 
light, I  remember,  two  distinct  gasps  of  emotion, 
which  were,  sharply,  the  shock  of  my  first  and 
that  of  my  second  surprise.  My  second  was  a 
violent  perception  of  the  mistake  of  my  first :  the 
man  who  met  my  eyes  was  not  the  person  I  had 
precipitately  supposed.  There  came  to  me  thus 
a  bewilderment  of  vision  of  which,  after  these 


THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  39 

years,  there  is  no  living  view  that  I  can  hope  to 
give.  An  unknown  man  in  a  lonely  place  is  a 
permitted  object  of  fear  to  a  young  woman  pri- 
vately bred  ;  and  the  figure  that  faced  me  was  — 
a  few  more  seconds  assured  me  —  as  little  any- 
one else  I  knew  as  it  was  the  image  that  had  been 
in  my  mind.  I  had  not  seen  it  in  Harley  Street 
—  I  had  not  seen  it  anywhere.  The  place,  more- 
over, in  the  strangest  way  in  the  world,  had,  on 
the  instant,  and  by  the  very  fact  of  its  appear- 
ance, become  a  solitude.  To  me  at  least,  making 
my  statement  here  with  a  deliberation  with  which 
I  have  never  made  it,  the  whole  feeling  of  the 
moment  returns.  It  was  as  if,  while  I  took  in  — 
what  I  did  take  in  —  all  the  rest  of  the  scene  had 
been  stricken  with  death.  I  can  hear  again,  as  I 
write,  the  intense  hush  in  which  the  sounds  of 
evening  dropped.  The  rooks  stopped  cawing  in 
the  golden  sky  and  the  friendly  hour  lost,  for  the 
minute,  all  its  voice.  But  there  was  no  other 
change  in  nature,  unless  indeed  it  were  a  change 
that  I  saw  with  a  stranger  sharpness.  The  gold 
was  still  in  the  sky,  the  clearness  in  the  air,  and 
the  man  who  looked  at  me  over  the  battlements 
was  as  definite  as  a  picture  in  a  frame.  That's 
how  I  thought,  with  extraordinary  quickness,  of 
each  person  that  he  might  have  been  and  that  he 


40  THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCREW 

was  not.  We  were  confronted  across  our  distance 
quite  long  enough  for  me  to  ask  myself  with  in- 
tensity who  then  he  was  and  to  feel,  as  an  effect 
of  my  inability  to  say,  a  wonder  that  in  a  few 
instants  more  became  intense. 

The  great  question,  or  one  of  these,  is,  after- 
wards, I  know,  with  regard  to  certain  matters, 
the  question  of  how  long  they  have  lasted.  Well, 
this  matter  of  mine,  think  what  you  will  of  it, 
lasted  while  I  caught  at  a  dozen  possibilities,  none 
of  which  made  a  difference  for  the  better,  that  I 
could  see,  in  there  having  been  in  the  house  — 
and  for  how  long,  above  all  ?  —  a  person  of  whom 
I  was  in  ignorance.  It  lasted  while  I  just  bridled 
a  little  with  the  sense  that  my  office  demanded 
that  there  should  be  no  such  ignorance  and  no 
such  person.  It  lasted  while  this  visitant,  at  all 
events,  —  and  there  was  a  touch  of  the  strange 
freedom,  as  I  remember,  in  the  sign  of  famil- 
iarity of  his  wearing  no  hat,  —  seemed  to  fix  me, 
from  his  position,  with  just  the  question,  just  the 
scrutiny  through  the  fading  light,  that  his  own 
presence  provoked.  We  were  too  far  apart  to 
call  to  each  other,  but  there  was  a  moment  at 
which,  at  shorter  range,  some  challenge  between 
us,  breaking  the  hush,  would  have  been  the  right 
result  of  our  straight  mutual  stare.  He  was  in 


THE   TUKN   OF   THE   SCKEW  41 

one  of  the  angles,  the  one  away  from  the  house, 
very  erect,  as  it  struck  me,  and  with  both  hands 
on  the  ledge.  So  I  saw  him  as  I  see  the  letters  I 
form  on  this  page  ;  then,  exactly,  after  a  minute, 
as  if  to  add  to  the  spectacle,  he  slowly  changed 
his  place  —  passed,  looking  at  me  hard  all  the 
while,  to  the  opposite  corner  of  the  platform. 
Yes,  I  had  the  sharpest  sense  that  during  this 
transit  he  never  took  his  eyes  from  me,  and  I  can 
see  at  this  moment  the  way  his  hand,  as  he  went, 
passed  from  one  of  the  crenelations  to  the  next. 
He  stopped  at  the  other  corner,  but  less  long,  and 
even  as  he  turned  away  still  markedly  fixed  me. 
He  turned  away  ;  that  was  all  I  knew. 


IV 


IT  was  not  that  I  didn't  wait,  on  this  occasion, 
for  more,  for  I  was  rooted  as  deeply  as  I  was 
shaken.  Was  there  a  "  secret "  at  Ely  —  a  mys- 
tery of  Udolpho  or  an  insane,  an  unmentionable 
relative  kept  in  unsuspected  confinement  ?  I 
can't  say  how  long  I  turned  it  over,  or  how 
long,  in  a  confusion  of  curiosity  and  dread,  I 
remained  where  I  had  had  my  collision ;  I  only 
recall  that  when  I  re-entered  the  house  darkness 
had  quite  closed  in.  Agitation,  in  the  interval, 
certainly  had  held  me  and  driven  me,  for  I  must, 
in  circling  about  the  place,  have  walked  three 
miles;  but  I  was  to  be,  later  on,  so  much  more 
overwhelmed  that  this  mere  dawn  of  alarm  was 
a  comparatively  human  chill.  The  most  singu- 
lar part  of  it  in  fact  —  singular  as  the  rest  had 
been  —  was  the  part  I  became,  in  the  hall,  aware 
of  in  meeting  Mrs.  Grose.  This  picture  comes 
back  to  me  in  the  general  train  —  the  impression, 
as  I  received  it  on  my  return,  of  the  wide  white 
42 


THE   TUKN   OF   THE   SCREW  43 

panelled  space,  bright  in  the  lamplight  and  with 
its  portraits  and  red  carpet,  and  of  the  good 
surprised  look  of  my  friend,  which  immediately 
told  me  she  had  missed  me.  It  came  to  me 
straightway,  under  her  contact,  that,  with  plain 
heartiness,  mere  relieved  anxiety  at  my  appear- 
ance, she  knew  nothing  whatever  that  could  bear 
upon  the  incident  I  had  there  ready  for  her.  I 
had  not  suspected  in  advance  that  her  comfort- 
able face  would  pull  me  up,  and  I  somehow 
measured  the  importance  of  what  I  had  seen  by 
my  thus  finding  myself  hesitate  to  mention  it. 
Scarce  anything  in  the  whole  history  seems  to  me 
so  odd  as  this  fact  that  my  real  beginning  of  fear 
was  one,  as  I  may  say,  with  the  instinct  of  spar- 
ing my  companion.  On  the  spot,  accordingly,  in 
the  pleasant  hall  and  with  her  eyes  on  me,  I, 
for  a  reason  that  I  couldn't  then  have  phrased, 
achieved  an  inward  revolution  —  offered  a  vague 
pretext  for  my  lateness  and,  with  the  plea  of  the 
beauty  of  the  night  and  of  the  heavy  dew  and 
wet  feet,  went  as  soon  as  possible  to  my  room. 

Here  it  was  another  affair ;  here,  for  many 
days  after,  it  was  a  queer  affair  enough.  There 
were  hours,  from  day  to  day,  —  or  at  least  there 
were  moments,  snatched  even  from  clear  duties, 
—  when  I  had  to  shut  myself  up  to  think.  It 


44  THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCKEW 

was  not  so  much  yet  that  I  was  more  nervous 
than  I  could  bear  to  be  as  that  I  was  remarkably 
afraid  of  becoming  so  ;  for  the  truth  I  had  now 
to  turn  over  was,  simply  and  clearly,  the  truth 
that  I  could  arrive  at  no  account  whatever  of  the 
visitor  with  whom  I  had  been  so  inexplicably  and 
yet,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  so  intimately  concerned. 
It  took  little  time  to  see  that  I  could  sound  with- 
out forms  of  inquiry  and  without  exciting  remark 
any  domestic  complication.  The  shock  I  had 
suffered  must  have  sharpened  all  my  senses  ;  I 
felt  sure,  at  the  end  of  three  days  and  as  the 
result  of  mere  closer  attention,  that  I  had  not 
been  practised  upon  by  the  servants  nor  made  the 
object  of  any  "game."  Of  whatever  it  was  that 
I  knew  nothing  was  known  around  me.  There 
was  but  one  sane  inference  :  someone  had  taken 
a  liberty  rather  gross.  That  was  what,  re- 
peatedly, I  dipped  into  my  room  and  locked  the 
door  to  say  to  myself.  We  had  been,  collec- 
tively, subject  to  an  intrusion ;  some  unscru- 
pulous traveller,  curious  in  old  houses,  had  made 
his  way  in  unobserved,  enjoyed  the  prospect  from 
the  best  point  of  view,  and  then  stolen  out  as 
he  came.  If  he  had  given  me  such  a  bold  hard 
stare,  that  was  but  a  part  of  his  indiscretion. 
The  good  thing,  after  all,  was  that  we  should 
surely  see  no  more  of  him. 


THE  TUEN   OF   THE  SCREW  45 

This  was  not  so  good  a  thing,  I  admit,  as  not 
to  leave  me  to  judge  that  what,  essentially,  made 
nothing  else  much  signify  was  simply  my  charm- 
ing work.  My  charming  work  was  just  my  life 
with  Miles  and  Flora,  and  through  nothing  could 
I  so  like  it  as  through  feeling  that  I  could  throw 
myself  into  it  in  trouble.  The  attraction  of  my 
small  charges  was  a  constant  joy,  leading  me  to 
wonder  afresh  at  the  vanity  of  my  original  fears, 
the  distaste  I  had  begun  by  entertaining  for  the 
probable  grey  prose  of  my  office.  There  was  to 
be  no  grey  prose,  it  appeared,  and  no  long  grind; 
so  how  could  work  not  be  charming  that  pre- 
sented itself  as  daily  beauty  ?  It  was  all  the 
romance  of  the  nursery  and  the  poetry  of  the 
schoolroom.  I  don't  mean  by  this,  of  course, 
that  we  studied  only  fiction  and  verse  ;  I  mean  I 
can  express  no  otherwise  the  sort  of  interest  my 
companions  inspired.  How  can  I  describe  that 
except  by  saying  that  instead  of  growing  used  to 
them  —  and  it's  a  marvel  for  a  governess :  I 
call  the  sisterhood  to  witness !  —  I  made  constant 
fresh  discoveries.  There  was  one  direction,  as- 
suredly, in  which  these  discoveries  stopped  :  deep 
obscurity  continued  to  cover  the  region  of  the 
boy's  conduct  at  school.  It  had  been  promptly 
given  me,  I  have  noted,  to  face  that  mystery 


4b  THE  TURN   OF  THE   SCREW 

without  a  pang.  Perhaps  even  it  would  be 
nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  —  without  a  word  — 
he  himself  had  cleared  it  up.  He  had  made  the 
whole  charge  absurd.  My  conclusion  bloomed 
there  with  the  real  rose-flush  of  his  innocence : 
he  was  only  too  fine  and  fair  for  the  little  horrid, 
unclean  school-world,  and  he  had  paid  a  price  for 
it.  I  reflected  acutely  that  the  sense  of  such 
differences,  such  superiorities  of  quality,  always, 
on  the  part  of  the  majority  —  which  could  include 
even  stupid,  sordid  head-masters  —  turns  infal- 
libly to  the  vindictive. 

Both  the  children  had  a  gentleness  (it  was 
their  only  fault,  and  it  never  made  Miles  a 
muff)  that  kept  them — how  shall  I  express  it? 
—  almost  impersonal  and  certainly  quite  unpun- 
ishable. They  were  like  the  cherubs  of  the 
anecdote,  who  had  —  morally,  at  any  rate  — 
nothing  to  whack !  I  remember  feeling  with 
Miles  in  especial  as  if  he  had  had,  as  it  were, 
no  history.  We  expect  of  a  small  child  a  scant 
one,  but  there  was  in  this  beautiful  little  boy 
something  extraordinarily  sensitive,  yet  extraor- 
dinarily happy,  that,  more  than  in  any  creature 
of  his  age  I  have  seen,  struck  me  as  beginning 
anew  each  day.  He  had  never  for  a  second  suf- 
fered. I  took  this  as  a  direct  disproof  of  his 


THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  47 

having  really  been  chastised.  If  he  had  been 
wicked  he  would  have  "  caught  "  it,  and  I  should 
have  caught  it  by  the  rebound  —  I  should  have 
found  the  trace.  I  found  nothing  at  all,  and  he 
was  therefore  an  angel.  He  never  spoke  of  his 
school,  never  mentioned  a  comrade  or  a  master ; 
and  I,  for  my  part,  was  quite  too  much  disgusted 
to  allude  to  them.  Of  course  I  was  under  the 
spell,  and  the  wonderful  part  is  that,  even  at  the 
time,  I  perfectly  knew  I  was.  But  I  gave  myself 
up  to  it ;  it  was  an  antidote  to  any  pain,  and  I 
had  more  pains  than  one.  I  was  in  receipt  in 
these  days  of  disturbing  letters  from  home,  where 
things  were  not  going  well.  But  with  my  chil- 
dren, what  things  in  the  world  mattered?  That 
was  the  question  I  used  to  put  to  my  scrappy 
retirements.  I  was  dazzled  by  their  loveliness. 

There  was  a  Sunday  —  to  get  on  —  when  it 
rained  with  such  force  and  for  so  many  hours 
that  there  could  be  no  procession  to  church ;  in 
consequence  of  which,  as  the  day  declined,  I  had 
arranged  with  Mrs.  Grose  that,  should  the  even- 
ing show  improvement,  we  would  attend  to- 
gether the  late  service.  The  rain  happily  stopped, 
and  I  prepared  for  our  walk,  which,  through  the 
park  and  by  the  good  road  to  the  village,  would 
be  a  matter  of  twenty  minutes.  Coming  down- 


48  THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCREW 

stairs  to  meet  my  colleague  in  the  hall,  I  remem- 
bered a  pair  of  gloves  that  had  required  three 
stitches  and  that  had  received  them  —  with  a 
publicity  perhaps  not  edifying  —  while  I  sat  with 
the  children  at  their  tea,  served  on  Sundays,  by 
exception,  in  that  cold,  clean  temple  of  mahogany 
and  brass,  the  "  grown-up "  dining-room.  The 
gloves  had  been  dropped  there,  and  I  turned  in 
to  recover  them.  The  day  was  grey  enough,  but 
the  afternoon  light  still  lingered,  and  it  enabled 
me,  on  crossing  the  threshold,  not  only  to  recog- 
nise, on  a  chair  near  the  wide  window,  then 
closed,  the  articles  I  wanted,  but  to  become  aware 
of  a  person  on  the  other  side  of  the  window  and 
looking  straight  in.  One  step  into  the  room  had 
sufficed ;  my  vision  was  instantaneous ;  it  was  all 
there.  The  person  looking  straight  in  was  the 
person  who  had  already  appeared  to  me.  He 
appeared  thus  again  with  I  won't  say  greater  dis- 
tinctness, for  that  was  impossible,  but  with  a 
nearness  that  represented  a  forward  stride  in  our 
intercourse  and  made  me,  as  I  met  him,  catch  my 
breath  and  turn  cold.  He  was  the  same  —  he 
was  the  same,  and  seen,  this  time,  as  he  had  been 
seen  before,  from  the  waist  up,  the  window, 
though  the  dining-room  was  on  the  ground-floor, 
not  going  down  to  the  terrace  on  which  he  stood. 


THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  49 

His  face  was  close  to  the  glass,  yet  the  effect  of 
this  better  view  was,  strangely,  only  to  show  me 
how  intense  the  former  had  been.  He  remained 
but  a  few  seconds  —  long  enough  to  convince  me 
he  also  saw  and  recognised ;  but  it  was  as  if  I 
had  been  looking  at  him  for  years  and  had  known 
him  always.  Something,  however,  happened  this 
time  that  had  not  happened  before ;  his  stare 
into  my  face,  through  the  glass  and  across  the 
room,  was  as  deep  and  hard  as  then,  but  it  quitted 
me  for  a  moment  during  which  I  could  still  watch 
it,  see  it  fix  successively  several  other  things. 
On  the  spot  there  came  to  me  the  added  shock 
of  a  certitude  that  it  was  not  for  me  he  had  come 
there.  He  had  come  for  someone  else. 

The  flash  of  this  knowledge  —  for  it  was 
knowledge  in  the  midst  of  dread  —  produced  in 
me  the  most  extraordinary  effect,  started,  as  I 
stood  there,  a  sudden  vibration  of  duty  and 
courage.  I  say  courage  because  I  was  beyond 
all  doubt  already  far  gone.  I  bounded  straight 
out  of  the  door  again,  reached  that  of  the  house, 
got,  in  an  instant,  upon  the  drive,  and,  passing 
along  the  terrace  as  fast  as  I  could  rush,  turned 
a  corner  and  came  full  in  sight.  But  it  was  in 
sight  of  nothing  now  —  my  visitor  had  vanished. 
I  stopped,  I  almost  dropped,  with  the  real  relief 


50  THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW 

of  this  ;  but  I  took  in  the  whole  scene  —  I  gave 
him  time  to  reappear.  I  call  it  time,  but  how 
long  was  it  ?  I  can't  speak  to  the  purpose  today 
of  the  duration  of  these  things.  That  kind  of 
measure  must  have  left  me  :  they  couldn't  have 
lasted  as  they  actually  appeared  to  me  to  last. 
The  terrace  and  the  whole  place,  the  lawn  and 
the  garden  beyond  it,  all  I  could  see  of  the 
park,  were  empty  with  a  great  emptiness.  There 
were  shrubberies  and  big  trees,  but  I  remember 
the  clear  assurance  I  felt  that  none  of  them  con- 
cealed him.  He  was  there  or  was  not  there : 
not  there  if  I  didn't  see  him.  I  got  hold  of 
this  ;  then,  instinctively,  instead  of  returning  as 
I  had  come,  went  to  the  window.  It  was  con- 
fusedly present  to  me  that  I  ought  to  place 
myself  where  he  had  stood.  I  did  so  ;  I  applied 
my  face  to  the  pane  and  looked,  as  he  had 
looked,  into  the  room.  As  if,  at  this  moment, 
to  show  me  exactly  what  his  range  had  been, 
Mrs.  Grose,  as  I  had  done  for  himself  just  before, 
came  in  from  the  hall.  With  this  I  had  the 
full  image  of  a  repetition  of  what  had  already 
occurred.  She  saw  me  as  I  had  seen  my  own 
visitant ;  she  pulled  up  short  as  I  had  done ; 
I  gave  her  something  of  the  shock  that  I  had 
received.  She  turned  white,  and  this  made  me 


THE  TUKX  OF  THJE  SCKEW  51 

ask  myself  if  I  had  blanched  as  much.  She 
stared,  in  short,  and  retreated  on  just  my  lines, 
and  I  knew  she  had  then  passed  out  and  come 
round  to  me  and  that  I  should  presently  meet 
her.  I  remained  where  I  was,  and  while  I 
waited  I  thought  of  more  things  than  one.  But 
there's  only  one  I  take  space  to  mention.  I 
wondered  why  she  should  be  scared. 


OH,  she  let  me  know  as  soon  as,  round  the 
corner  of  the  house,  she  loomed  again  into  view. 
"What  in  the  name  of  goodness  is  the  mat- 
ter  ?"  She  was  now  flushed  and  out  of 

breath. 

I  said  nothing  till  she  came  quite  near.  "  With 
me?"  I  must  have  made  a  wonderful  face.  "Do 
I  show  it?" 

"  You're  as  white  as  a  sheet.     You  look  awful." 

I  considered;  I  could  meet  on  this,  without 
scruple,  any  innocence.  My  need  to  respect  the 
bloom  of  Mrs.  Grose's  had  dropped,  without  a 
rustle,  from  my  shoulders,  and  if  I  wavered  for 
the  instant  it  was  not  with  what  I  kept  back. 
I  put  out  my  hand  to  her  and  she  took  it ;  I 
held  her  hard  a  little,  liking  to  feel  her  close  to 
me.  There  was  a  kind  of  support  in  the  shy 
heave  of  her  surprise.  "  You  came  for  me  for 
church,  of  course,  but  I  can't  go." 

"  Has  anything  happened? " 
52 


THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  53 

"  Yes.  You  must  know  now.  Did  I  look  very 
queer?" 

"  Through  this  window  ?     Dreadful !  " 

"Well,"  I  said,  "I've  been  frightened."  Mrs. 
Grose's  eyes  expressed  plainly  that  she  had  no 
wish  to  be,  yet  also  that  she  knew  too  well  her 
place  not  to  be  ready  to  share  with  me  any 
marked  inconvenience.  Oh,  it  was  quite  set- 
tled that  she  must  share  !  "  Just  what  you  saw 
from  the  dining-room  a  minute  ago  was  the  effect 
of  that.  What  /saw  —  just  before  —  was  much 
worse." 

Her  hand  tightened.     "What  was  it?" 

"An  extraordinary  man.     Looking  in." 

"What  extraordinary  man?" 

"I  haven't  the  least  idea." 

Mrs.  Grose  gazed  round  us  in  vain.  "Then 
where  is  he  gone  ?  " 

"I  know  still  less." 

"  Have  you  seen  him  before  ?  " 

"Yes  —  once.     On  the  old  tower." 

She  could  only  look  at  me  harder.  "  Do  you 
mean  he's  a  stranger  ?  " 

"  Oh,  very  much  !  " 

"Yet  you  didn't  tell  me?" 

"  No  —  for  reasons.  But  now  that  you've 
guessed " 


54  THE  TURN   OF  THE   SCREW 

Mrs.  Grbse's  round  eyes  encountered  this 
charge.  "Ah,  I  haven't  guessed!"  she  said  very 
simply.  "  How  can  I  if  you  don't  imagine  ?  " 

"I  don't  in  the  very  least." 

"You've  seen  him  nowhere  but  on  the  tower?" 

"And  on  this  spot  just  now." 

Mrs.  Grose  looked  round  again.  "What  was 
he  doing  on  the  tower?" 

"Only  standing  there  and  looking  down  at  me." 

She  thought  a  minute.     "  Was  he  a  gentleman  ?  " 

I  found  I  had  no  need  to  think.  "No."  She 
gazed  in  deeper  wonder.  "  No." 

"  Then  nobody  about  the  place  ?  Nobody  from 
the  village  ?  " 

"Nobody  —  nobody.  I  didn't  tell  you,  but 
I  made  sure." 

She  breathed  a  vague  relief :  this  was,  oddly, 
so  much  to  the  good.  It  only  went  indeed  a 
little  way.  "But  if  he  isn't  a  gentleman ' 

"  What  i»  he  ?     He's  a  horror." 

"  A  horror  ?  " 

"  He's  —  God  help  me  if  I  know  what  he  is  !  " 

Mrs.  Grose  looked  round  once  more ;  she  fixed 
her  eyes  on  the  duskier  distance,  then,  pulling 
herself  together,  turned  to  me  with  abrupt  in- 
consequence. "It's  time  we  should  be  at  church." 

"  Oh,  I'm  not  fit  for  church !  " 


THE   TURN   OF   THE  SCREW  55 

"  Won't  it  do  you  good  ?  " 

"  It  won't  do  them !  "  I  nodded  at  the 

house. 

"The  children?" 

"I  can't  leave  them  now." 

"  You're  afraid ?  " 

I  spoke  boldly.     "  I'm  afraid  of  him." 

Mrs.  Grose's  large  face  showed  me,  at  this,  for 
the  first  time,  the  far-away  faint  glimmer  of  a 
consciousness  more  acute  :  I  somehow  made  out 
in  it  the  delayed  dawn  of  an  idea  I  myself  had 
not  given  her  and  that  was  as  yet  quite  obscure 
to  me.  It  comes  back  to  me  that  I  thought 
instantly  of  this  as  something  I  could  get  from 
her ;  and  I  felt  it  to  be  connected  with  the  desire 
she  presently  showed  to  know  more.  "When 
was  it  —  on  the  tower  ?  " 

"About  the  middle  of  the  month.  At  this 
same  hour." 

"  Almost  at  dark,"  said  Mrs.  Grose. 

"  Oh  no,  not  nearly.     I  saw  him  as  I  see  you." 

"  Then  how  did  he  get  in  ?  " 

"And  how  did  he  get  out?"  I  laughed.  "I 
had  no  opportunity  to  ask  him !  This  evening, 
you  see,"  I  pursued,  "he  has  not  been  able  to 
get  in." 

"  He  only  peeps  ?  " 


56  THE  TURN   OP   THE  SCREW 

"  I  hope  it  will  be  confined  to  that ! "  She  had 
now  let  go  my  hand  ;  she  turned  away  a  little. 
I  waited  an  instant ;  then  I  brought  out :  "  Go  to 
church.  Good-bye.  I  must  watch." 

Slowly  she  faced  me  again.  "  Do  you  fear  for 
them?" 

We  met  in  another  long  look.  "  Don't  you  ?  " 
Instead  of  answering  she  came  nearer  to  the  win- 
dow and,  for  a  minute,  applied  her  face  to  the 
glass.  "  You  see  how  he  could  see,"  I  meanwhile 
went  on. 

She  didn't  move.     "  How  long  was  he  here  ?  " 

"  Till  I  came  out.     I  came  to  meet  him." 

Mrs.  Grose  at  last  turned  round,  and  there  was 
still  more  in  her  face.  "/  couldn't  have  come 
out." 

"  Neither  could  I !  "  I  laughed  again.  "  But  I 
did  come.  I  have  my  duty." 

"  So  have  I  mine,"  she  replied ;  after  which  she 
added :  "  What  is  he  like  ?  " 

"I've  been  dying  to  tell  you.  But  he's  like 
nobody." 

"Nobody?"  she  echoed. 

"  He  has  no  hat."  Then  seeing  in  her  face  that 
she  already,  in  this,  with  a  deeper  dismay,  found  a 
touch  of  picture,  I  quickly  added  stroke  to  stroke. 
"  He  has  red  hair,  very  red,  close-curling,  and  a 


THE  TURN  OF  THE   SCREW  57 

pale  face,  long  in  shape,  with  straight,  good  feat- 
ures and  little,  rather  queer  whiskers  that  are  as 
red  as  his  hair.  His  eyebrows  are,  somehow, 
darker;  they  look  particularly  arched  and  as  if 
they  might  move  a  good  deal.  His  eyes  are 
sharp,  strange — awfully ;  but  I  only  know  clearly 
that  they're  rather  small  and  very  fixed.  His 
mouth's  wide,  and  his  lips  are  thin,  and  except  for 
his  little  whiskers  he's  quite  clean-shaven.  He 
gives  me  a  sort  of  sense  of  looking  like  an  actor." 

"  An  actor ! "  It  was  impossible  to  resemble 
one  less,  at  least,  than  Mrs.  Grose  at  that  mo- 
ment. 

"  I've  never  seen  one,  but  so  I  suppose  them. 
He's  tall,  active,  erect,"  I  continued,  "  but  never 
—  no,  never  !  —  a  gentleman." 

My  companion's  face  had  blanched  as  I  went 
on;  her  round  eyes  started  and  her  mild  mouth 
gaped.  "  A  gentleman  ?  "  she  gasped,  confounded, 
stupefied  :  "a  gentleman  he?" 

"  You  know  him  then  ?  " 

She  visibly  tried  to  hold  herself.  "  But  he  is 
handsome  ?  " 

I  saw  the  way  to  help  her.     "Remarkably ! " 

"And  dressed ?" 

"In  somebody's  clothes.  They're  smart,  but 
they're  not  his  own." 


58  THE   TURN   OP   THE   SCREW 

She  broke  into  a  breathless  affirmative  groan. 
"  They're  the  master's ! " 

I  caught  it  up.     "You  do  know  him?" 

She  faltered  but  a  second.     "  Quint !  "  she  cried. 

"Quint?" 

"  Peter  Quint  —  his  own  man,  his  valet,  when 
he  was  here  !  " 

"  When  the  master  was  ?  " 

Gaping  still,  but  meeting  me,  she  pieced  it 
all  together.  "  He  never  wore  his  hat,  but  he 
did  wear  —  well,  there  were  waistcoats  missed ! 
They  were  both  here  —  last  year.  Then  the 
master  went,  and  Quint  was  alone." 

I  followed,  but  halting  a  little.     "  Alone  ?  " 

"Alone  with  us."  Then,  as  from  a  deeper 
depth,  "  In  charge,"  she  added. 

"  And  what  became  of  him  ?  " 

She  hung  fire  so  long  that  I  was  still  more 
mystified.  "He  went  too,"  she  brought  out  at 
last. 

"Went  where?" 

Her  expression,  at  this,  became  extraordinary. 
"God  knows  where!  He  died." 

"Died?"  I  almost  shrieked. 

She  seemed  fairly  to  square  herself,  plant 
herself  more  firmly  to  utter  the  wonder  of  it. 
"Yes.  Mr.  Quint  is  dead." 


VI 


IT  took  of  course  more  than  that  particular 
passage  to  place  us  together  in  presence  of 
what  we  had  now  to  live  with  as  we  could  — 
my  dreadful  liability  to  impressions  of  the 
order  so  vividly  exemplified,  and  my  compan- 
ion's knowledge,  henceforth,  — a  knowledge  half 
consternation  and  half  compassion,  —  of  that  lia- 
bility. There  had  been,  this  evening,  after  the 
revelation  that  left  me,  for  an  hour,  so  pros- 
trate—  there  had  been,  for  either  of  us,  no 
attendance  on  any  service  but  a  little  service 
of  tears  and  vows,  of  prayers  and  promises,  a 
climax  to  the  series  of  mutual  challenges  and 
pledges  that  had  straightway  ensued  on  our 
retreating  together  to  the  schoolroom  and  shut- 
ting ourselves  up  there  to  have  everything  out. 
The  result  of  our  having  everything  out  was 
simply  to  reduce  our  situation  to  the  last 
rigour  of  its  elements.  She  herself  had  seen 
nothing,  not  the  shadow  of  a  shadow,  and  no- 
59 


60  THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW 

body  in  the  house  but  the  governess  was  in  the 
governess's  plight;  yet  she  accepted  without 
directly  impugning  my  sanity  the  truth  as  I 
gave  it  to  her,  and  ended  by  showing  me,  on 
this  ground,  an  awe-stricken  tenderness,  an  ex- 
pression of  the  sense  of  my  more  than  question- 
able privilege,  of  which  the  very  breath  has 
remained  with  me  as  that  of  the  sweetest  of 
human  charities. 

What  was  settled  between  us,  accordingly,  that 
night,  was  that  we  thought  we  might  bear  things 
together ;  and  I  was  not  even  sure  that,  in  spite 
of  her  exemption,  it  was  she  who  had  the  best  of 
the  burden.  I  knew  at  this  hour,  I  think,  as  well 
as  I  knew  later  what  I  was  capable  of  meeting  to 
shelter  my  pupils;  but  it  took  me  some  time  to 
be  wholly  sure  of  what  my  honest  ally  was  pre- 
pared for  to  keep  terms  with  so  compromising  a 
contract.  I  was  queer  company  enough  —  quite 
as  queer  as  the  company  I  received ;  but  as  I 
trace  over  what  we  went  through  I  see  how  much 
common  ground  we  must  have  found  in  the  one 
idea  that,  by  good  fortune,  could  steady  us.  It 
was  the  idea,  the  second  movement,  that  led  me 
straight  out,  as  I  may  say,  of  the  inner  chamber 
of  my  dread.  I  could  take  the  air  in  the  court, 
at  least,  and  there  Mrs.  Grose  could  join  me. 


THE  TUKN   OP   THE  SCREW  61 

Perfectly  can  I  recall  now  the  particular  way 
strength  came  to  me  before  we  separated  for  the 
night.  We  had  gone  over  and  over  every  feature 
of  what  I  had  seen. 

"  He  was  looking  for  someone  else,  you  say  — 
someone  who  was  not  you  ?  " 

"He  was  looking  for  little  Miles."  A  porten- 
tous clearness  now  possessed  me.  "  That's  whom 
he  was  looking  for." 

"  But  how  do  you  know  ?  " 

"  I  know,  I  know,  I  know  !  "  My  exaltation 
grew.  "  And  you  know,  my  dear !  " 

She  didn't  deny  this,  but  I  required,  I  felt,  not 
even  so  much  telling  as  that.  She  resumed  in  a 
moment,  at  any  rate  :  "  What  if  he  should  see 
him?" 

"  Little  Miles  ?     That's  what  he  wants  !  " 

She  looked  immensely  scared  again.  "The 
child?" 

"  Heaven  forbid  !  The  man.  He  wants  to 
appear  to  them"  That  he  might  was  an  awful 
conception,  and  yet,  somehow,  I  could  keep  it  at 
bay  ;  which,  moreover,  as  we  lingered  there,  was 
what  I  succeeded  in  practically  proving.  I  had 
an  absolute  certainty  that  I  should  see  again  what 
I  had  already  seen,  but  something  within  me  said 
that  by  offering  myself  bravely  as  the  sole  subject 


62  THE  TUKN   OF  THE  SCREW 

of  such  experience,  by  accepting,  by  inviting,  by 
surmounting  it  all,  I  should  serve  as  an  expiatory 
victim  and  guard  the  tranquillity  of  my  compan- 
ions. The  children,  in  especial,  I  should  thus 
fence  about  and  absolutely  save.  I  recall  one  of 
the  last  things  I  said  that  night  to  Mrs.  Grose. 

"  It  does  strike  me  that  my  pupils  have  never 
mentioned " 

She  looked  at  me  hard  as  I  musingly  pulled  up. 
"  His  having  been  here  and  the  time  they  were 
with  him  ?  " 

"  The  time  they  were  with  him,  and  his  name, 
his  presence,  his  history,  in  any  way." 

"Oh,  the  little  lady  doesn't  remember.  She 
never  heard  or  knew." 

"  The  circumstances  of  his  death  ?  "  I  thought 
with  some  intensity.  "  Perhaps  not.  But  Miles 
would  remember  —  Miles  would  know." 

"  Ah,  don't  try  him  !  "  broke  from  Mrs.   Grose. 

I  returned  her  the  look  she  had  given  me. 
"Don't  be  afraid."  I  continued  to  think.  "It 
is  rather  odd." 

"That  he  has  never  spoken  of  him  ?  " 

"  Never  by  the  least  allusion.  And  you  tell  me 
they  were  '  great  friends '  ?  " 

"Oh,  it  wasn't  him!"  Mrs.  Grose  with  empha- 
sis declared.  "It  was  Quint's  own  fancy.  To 


THE   TURN   OF  THE   SCKEW  63 

play  with  him,  I  mean  —  to  spoil  him."  She 
paused  a  moment ;  then  she  added  :  "  Quint  was 
much  too  free." 

This  gave  me,  straight  from  my  vision  of  his 
face  —  such  a  face  !  —  a  sudden  sickness  of  dis- 
gust. "  Too  free  with  my  boy  ?  " 

"  Too  free  with  everyone  !  " 

I  forbore,  for  the  moment,  to  analyse  this  de- 
scription further  than  by  the  reflection  that  a  part 
of  it  applied  to  several  of  the  members  of  the 
household,  of  the  half-dozen  maids  and  men  who 
were  still  of  our  small  colony.  But  there  was 
everything,  for  our  apprehension,  in  the  lucky 
fact  that  no  discomfortable  legend,  no  pertur- 
bation of  scullions,  had  ever,  within  anyone's 
memory,  attached  to  the  kind  old  place.  It  had 
neither  bad  name  nor  ill  fame,  and  Mrs.  Grose, 
most  apparently,  only  desired  to  cling  to  me  and 
to  quake  in  silence.  I  even  put  her,  the  very  last 
thing  of  all,  to  the  test.  It  was  when,  at  mid- 
night, she  had  her  hand  on  the  schoolroom  door 
to  take  leave.  "  I  have  it  from  you  then  —  for  it's 
of  great  importance  —  that  he  was  definitely  and 
admittedly  bad  ?  " 

"Oh,  not  admittedly.  I  knew  it — but  the 
master  didn't.  " 

"  And  you  never  told  him  ?  " 


64  THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW 

"Well,  he  didn't  like  tale-bearing  —  lie  hated 
complaints.  He  was  terribly  short  with  any- 
thing of  that  kind,  and  if  people  were  all  right 
to  him " 

"  He  wouldn't  be  bothered  with  more  ?  "  This 
squared  well  enough  with  my  impression  of  him  : 
he  was  not  a  trouble-loving  gentleman,  nor  so 
very  particular  perhaps  about  some  of  the  com- 
pany he  kept.  All  the  same,  I  pressed  my  in- 
terlocutress. "  I  promise  you  I  would  have 
told  ! " 

She  felt  my  discrimination.  "  I  dare  say  I 
was  wrong.  But,  really,  I  was  afraid." 

"  Afraid  of  what  ?  " 

"  Of  things  that  man  could  do.  Quint  was  so 
clever — he  was  so  deep." 

I  took  this  in  still  more  than,  probably,  I 
showed.  "  You  weren't  afraid  of  anything  else  ? 
Not  of  his  effect ?" 

"  His  effect  ? "  she  repeated  with  a  face  of 
anguish  and  waiting  while  I  faltered. 

"  On  innocent  little  precious  lives.  They  were 
in  your  charge." 

"  No,  they  were  not  in  mine  !  "  she  roundly  and 
distressfully  returned.  "  The  master  believed  in 
him  and  placed  him  here  because  he  was  supposed 
not  to  be  well  and  the  country  air  so  good  for 


THE  TUEX   OP  THE   SCREW  65 

him.  So  he  had  everything  to  say.  Yes  "  —  she 
let  me  have  it  —  "  even  about  them." 

"  Them  —  that  creature  ? "  I  had  to  smother  a 
kind  of  howl.  "  And  you  could  bear  it  ! " 

"  No.  I  couldn't  —  and  I  can't  now  !  "  And 
the  poor  woman  burst  into  tears. 

A  rigid  control,  from  the  next  day,  was,  as  I 
have  said,  to  follow  them  ;  yet  how  often  and  how 
passionately,  for  a  week,  we  came  back  together 
to  the  subject !  Much  as  we  had  discussed  it  that 
Sunday  night,  I  was,  in  the  immediate  later  hours 
in  especial  —  for  it  may  be  imagined  whether  I 
slept  —  still  haunted  with  the  shadow  of  some- 
thing she  had  not  told  me.  I  myself  had  kept 
back  nothing,  but  there  was  a  word  Mrs.  Grose 
had  kept  back.  I  was  sure,  moreover,  by  morn- 
ing, that  this  was  not  from  a  failure  of  frankness, 
but  because  on  every  side  there  were  fears.  It 
seems  to  me  indeed,  in  retrospect,  that  by  the 
time  the  morrow's  sun  was  high  I  had  restlessly 
read  into  the  facts  before  us  almost  all  the  mean- 
ing they  were  to  receive  from  subsequent  and 
more  cruel  occurrences.  What  they  gave  me 
above  all  was  just  the  sinister  figure  of  the  living 
man  —  the  dead  one  would  keep  awhile  !  —  and 
of  the  months  he  had  continuously  passed  at  Ely, 
which,  added  up,  made  a  formidable  stretch.  The 


66  THE   TUKN   OF   THE   SCREW 

limit  of  this  evil  time  had  arrived  only  when,  on 
the  dawn  of  a  winter's  morning,  Peter  Quint  was 
found,  by  a  labourer  going  to  early  work,  stone 
dead  on  the  road  from  the  village  :  a  catastrophe 
explained  —  superficially  at  least  —  by  a  visible 
wound  to  his  head  ;  such  a  wound  as  might  have 
been  produced  —  and  as,  on  the  final  evidence, 
had  been  —  by  a  fatal  slip,  in  the  dark  and  after 
leaving  the  public  house,  on  the  steepish  icy  slope, 
a  wrong  path  altogether,  at  the  bottom  of  which 
he  lay.  The  icy  slope,  the  turn  mistaken  at  night 
and  in  liquor,  accounted  for  much  —  practically, 
in  the  end  and  after  the  inquest  and  boundless 
chatter,  for  everything  ;  but  there  had  been  mat- 
ters in  his  life — strange  passages  and  perils,  se- 
cret disorders,  vices  more  than  suspected  —  that 
would  have  accounted  for  a  good  deal  more. 

I  scarce  know  how  to  put  my  story  into  words 
that  shall  be  a  credible  picture  of  my  state  of 
mind;  but  I  was  in  these  days  literally  able  to 
find  a  joy  in  the  extraordinary  flight  of  heroism 
the  occasion  demanded  of  me.  I  now  saw  that 
I  had  been  asked  for  a  service  admirable  and 
difficult ;  and  there  would  be  a  greatness  in  let- 
ting it  be  seen  —  oh,  in  the  right  quarter !  — 
that  I  could  succeed  where  many  another  girl 
might  have  failed.  It  was  an  immense  help  to 


THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  67 

me  —  I  confess  I  rather  applaud  myself  as  I  look 
back  !  —  that  I  saw  my  service  so  strongly  and 
so  simply.  I  was  there  to  protect  and  defend 
the  little  creatures  in  the  world  the  most  be- 
reaved and  the  most  loveable,  the  appeal  of  whose 
helplessness  had  suddenly  become  only  too  ex- 
plicit, a  deep,  constant  ache  of  one's  own  com- 
mitted heart.  We  were  cut  off,  really,  together ; 
we  were  united  in  our  danger.  They  had  noth- 
ing but  me,  and  I  —  well,  I  had  them.  It  was  in 
short  a  magnificent  chance.  This  chance  pre- 
sented itself  to  me  in  an  image  richly  material. 
I  was  a  screen  —  I  was  to  stand  before  them. 
The  more  I  saw,  the  less  they  would.  I  began 
to  watch  them  in  a  stifled  suspense,  a  disguised 
excitement  that  might  well,  had  it  continued  too 
long,  have  turned  to  something  like  madness. 
What  saved  me,  as  I  now  see,  was  that  it  turned 
to  something  else  altogether.  It  didn't  last  as 
suspense  —  it  was  superseded  by  horrible  proofs. 
Proofs,  I  say,  yes  —  from  the  moment  I  really 
took  hold. 

This  moment  dated  from  an  afternoon  hour 
that  I  happened  to  spend  in  the  grounds  with 
the  younger  of  my  pupils  alone.  We  had  left 
Miles  indoors,  on  the  red  cushion  of  a  deep  win- 
dow-seat;  he  had  wished  to  finish  a  book,  and 


68  THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCKEW 

I  had  been  glad  to  encourage  a  purpose  so  laud- 
able in  a  young  man  whose  only  defect  was  an 
occasional  excess  of  the  restless.  His  sister,  on 
the  contrary,  had  been  alert  to  come  out,  and  I 
strolled  with  her  half  an  hour,  seeking  the  shade, 
for  the  sun  was  still  high  and  the  day  exception- 
ally warm.  I  was  aware  afresh,  with  her,  as  we 
went,  of  how,  like  her  brother,  she  contrived  — 
it  was  the  charming  thing  in  both  children  —  to 
let  me  alone  without  appearing  to  drop  me  and 
to  accompany  me  without  appearing  to  surround. 
They  were  never  importunate  and  yet  never  list- 
less. My  attention  to  them  all  really  went  to 
seeing  them  amuse  themselves  immensely  with- 
out me  :  this  was  a  spectacle  they  seemed  ac- 
tively to  prepare  and  that  engaged  me  as  an 
active  admirer.  I  walked  in  a  world  of  their 
invention  —  they  had  no  occasion  whatever  to 
draw  upon  mine ;  so  that  my  time  was  taken 
only  with  being,  for  them,  some  remarkable 
person  or  thing  that  the  game  of  the  moment 
required  and  that  was  merely,  thanks  to  my  su- 
perior, my  exalted  stamp,  a  happy  and  highly 
distinguished  sinecure.  I  forget  what  I  was  on 
the  present  occasion ;  I  only  remember  that  I 
was  something  very  important  and  very  quiet 
and  that  Flora  was  playing  very  hard.  We  were 


THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW  69 

on  the  edge  of  the  lake,  and,  as  we  had  lately 
begun  geography,  the  lake  was  the  Sea  of  Azof. 

Suddenly,  in  these  circumstances,  I  became 
aware  that,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Sea  of 
Azof,  we  had  an  interested  spectator.  The  way 
this  knowledge  gathered  in  me  was  the  stran- 
gest thing  in  the  world  —  the  strangest,  that  is, 
except  the  very  much  stranger  in  which  it 
quickly  merged  itself.  I  had  sat  down  with 
a  piece  of  work  —  for  I  was  something  or  other 
that  could  sit  —  on  the  old  stone  bench  which 
overlooked  the  pond ;  and  in  this  position  I 
began  to  take  in  with  certitude,  and  yet  with- 
out direct  vision,  the  presence,  at  a  distance, 
of  a  third  person.  The  old  trees,  the  thick 
shrubbery,  made  a  great  and  pleasant  shade, 
but  it  was  all  suffused  with  the  brightness  of 
the  hot,  still  hour.  There  was  no  ambiguity 
in  anything ;  none  whatever,  at  least,  in  the 
conviction  I  from  one  moment  to  another  found 
myself  forming  as  to  what  I  should  see  straight 
before  me  and  across  the  lake  as  a  consequence 
of  raising  my  eyes.  They  were  attached  at  this 
juncture  to  the  stitching  in  which  I  was  engaged, 
and  I  can  feel  once  more  the  spasm  of  my  effort 
not  to  move  them  till  I  should  so  have  steadied 
myself  as  to  be  able  to  make  up  my  mind  what 


70  THE  TUKN   OF  THE  SCKEW 

to  do.  There  was  an  alien  object  in  view  —  a 
figure  whose  right  of  presence  I  instantly,  pas- 
sionately questioned.  I  recollect  counting  over 
perfectly  the  possibilities,  reminding  myself  that 
nothing  was  more  natural,  for  instance,  than  the 
appearance  of  one  of  the  men  about  the  place, 
or  even  of  a  messenger,  a  postman  or  a  trades- 
man's boy,  from  the  village.  That  reminder  had 
as  little  effect  on  my  practical  certitude  as  I  was 
conscious  —  still  even  without  looking  —  of  its 
having  upon  the  character  and  attitude  of  our 
visitor.  Nothing  was  more  natural  than  that 
these  things  should  be  the  other  things  that 
they  absolutely  were  not. 

Of  the  positive  identity  of  the  apparition  I 
would  assure  myself  as  soon  as  the  small  clock 
of  my  courage  should  have  ticked  out  the  right 
second;  meanwhile,  with  an  effort  that  was 
already  sharp  enough,  I  transferred  my  eyes 
straight  to  little  Flora,  who,  at  the  moment, 
was  about  ten  yards  away.  My  heart  had  stood 
still  for  an  instant  with  the  wonder  and  terror 
of  the  question  whether  she  too  would  see ;  and 
I  held  my  breath  while  I  waited  for  what  a  cry 
from  her,  what  some  sudden  innocent  sign  either 
of  interest  or  of  alarm,  would  tell  me.  I  waited, 
but  nothing  came ;  then,  in  the  first  place  —  and 


THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW  71 

there  is  something  more  dire  in  this,  I  feel,  than 
in  anything  I  have  to  relate  —  I  was  determined 
by  a  sense  that,  within  a  minute,  all  sounds  from 
her  had  previously  dropped ;  and,  in  the  second, 
by  the  circumstance  that,  also  within  the  minute, 
she  had,  in  her  play,  turned  her  back  to  the 
water.  This  was  her  attitude  when  I  at  last 
looked  at  her  —  looked  with  the  confirmed  con- 
viction that  we  were  still,  together,  under  direct 
personal  notice.  She  had  picked  up  a  small  flat 
piece  of  wood,  which  happened  to  have  in  it  a 
little  hole  that  had  evidently  suggested  to  her 
the  idea  of  sticking  in  another  fragment  that 
might  figure  as  a  mast  and  make  the  thing  a 
boat.  This  second  morsel,  as  I  watched  her, 
she  was  very  markedly  and  intently  attempting 
to  tighten  in  its  place.  My  apprehension  of 
what  she  was  doing  sustained  me  so  that  after 
some  seconds  I  felt  I  was  ready  for  more.  Then 
I  again  shifted  my  eyes  —  I  faced  what  I  had 
to  face. 


VII 

I  GOT  hold  of  Mrs.  Grose  as  soon  after  this  as 
I  could ;  and  I  can  give  no  intelligible  account 
of  how  I  fought  out  the  interval.  Yet  I  still 
hear  myself  cry  as  I  fairly  threw  myself  into 
her  arms  :  "  They  know  —  it's  too  monstrous  : 
they  know,  they  know  !  " 

"  And  what  on  earth ?  "  I  felt  her  incre- 
dulity as  she  held  me. 

"  Why,  all  that  we  know  —  and  heaven  knows 
what  else  besides  !  "  Then,  as  she  released  me, 
I  made  it  out  to  her,  made  it  out  perhaps  only 
now  with  full  coherency  even  to  myself.  "  Two 
hours  ago,  in  the  garden  "  —  I  could  scarce  artic- 
ulate —  "  Flora  saw  !  " 

Mrs.  Grose  took  it  as  she  might  have  taken  a 
blow  in  the  stomach.  "  She  has  told  you  ?  "  she 
panted. 

"  Not  a  word  —  that's  the  horror.  She  kept  it 
to  herself !  The  child  of  eight,  that  child  !  " 
Unutterable  still,  for  me,  was  the  stupefaction 
of  it. 

72 


THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCKEW  73 

Mrs.  Grose,  of  course,  could  only  gape  the 
wider.  "  Then  how  do  you  know  ?  " 

"  I  was  there  —  I  saw  with  my  eyes  :  saw  that 
she  was  perfectly  aware." 

"  Do  you  mean  aware  of  him?  " 

"No  —  of  her."  I  was  conscious  as  I  spoke 
that  I  looked  prodigious  things,  for  I  got  the 
slow  reflection  of  them  in  my  companion's  face. 
"  Another  person  —  this  time  ;  but  a  figure  of 
quite  as  unmistakeable  horror  and  evil :  a  woman 
in  black,  pale  and  dreadful  —  with  such  an  air 
also,  and  such  a  face  !  —  on  the  other  side  of  the 
lake.  I  was  there  with  the  child  —  quiet  for  the 
hour;  and  in  the  midst  of  it  she  came." 

"  Came  how  —  from  where  ?  " 

"  From  where  they  come  from  !  She  just  ap- 
peared and  stood  there  —  but  not  so  near." 

"  And  without  coming  nearer  ?  " 

"  Oh.  for  the  effect  and  the  feeling,  she  might 
have  been  as  close  as  you ! " 

My  friend,  with  an  odd  impulse,  fell  back  a 
step.  "  Was  she  someone  you've  never  seen  ?  " 

"  Yes.  But  someone  the  child  has.  Someone 
you  have."  Then,  to  show  how  I  had  thought 
it  all  out :  "  My  predecessor  —  the  one  who 
died." 

"Miss  Jessel?" 


74  THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCREW 

"Miss    Jessel.      You    don't    believe  me?"    I 


She  turned  right  and  left  in  her  distress. 
"  How  can  you  be  sure  ?  " 

This  drew  from  me,  in  the  state  of  my  nerves, 
a  flash  of  impatience.  "  Then  ask  Flora  —  she's 
sure  ! "  But  I  had  no  sooner  spoken  than  I 
caught  myself  up.  "No,  for  God's  sake,  don't! 
She'll  say  she  isn't  —  she'll  lie  !  " 

Mrs.  Grose  was  not  too  bewildered  instinc- 
tively to  protest.  "Ah,  how  can  you?" 

"  Because  I'm  clear.  Flora  doesn't  want  me  to 
know." 

"It's  only  then  to  spare  you." 

"  No,  no  —  there  are  depths,  depths  !  The  more 
I  go  over  it,  the  more  I  see  in  it,  and  the  more  I 
see  in  it  the  more  I  fear.  I  don't  know  what  I 
don't  see  —  what  I  don't  fear  !  " 

Mrs.  Grose  tried  to  keep  up  with  me.  "You 
mean  you're  afraid  of  seeing  her  again  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no  ;  that's  nothing  —  now !  "  Then  I  ex- 
plained. "It's  of  not  seeing  her." 

But  my  companion  only  looked  wan.  "  I  don't 
understand  you." 

"Why,  it's  that  the  child  may  keep  it  up  — 
and  that  the  child  assuredly  will  —  without  my 
knowing  it." 


THE   TURN    OP   THE   SCREW  75 

At  the  image  of  this  possibility  Mrs.  Grose  for 
a  moment  collapsed,  yet  presently  to  pull  herself 
together  again,  as  if  from  the  positive  force  of  the 
sense  of  what,  should  we  yield  an  inch,  there 
would  really  be  to  give  way  to.  "Dear,  dear  — 
we  must  keep  our  heads  !  And  after  all,  if  she 

doesn't  mind  it !  "  She  even  tried  a  grim 

joke.  "  Perhaps  she  likes  it ! " 

"  Likes  such  things  —  a  scrap  of  an  infant !  " 

"Isn't  it  just  a  proof  of  her  blessed  inno- 
cence?" my  friend  bravely  inquired. 

She  brought  me,  for  the  instant,  almost  round. 
"Oh,  we  must  clutch  at  that — we  must  cling  to 
it !  If  it  isn't  a  proof  of  what  you  say,  it's  a 
proof  of  —  God  knows  what !  For  the  woman's 
a  horror  of  horrors." 

Mrs.  Grose,  at  this,  fixed  her  eyes  a  minute  on 
the  ground  ;  then  at  last  raising  them,  "  Tell  me 
how  you  know,"  she  said. 

"  Then  you  admit  it's  what  she  was  ? "  I 
cried. 

"Tell  me  how  you  know,"  my  friend  simply 
repeated. 

"Know?  By  seeing  her!  By  the  way  she 
looked." 

"At  you,  do  you  mean  —  so  wickedly?" 

"Dear    me,   no  —  I    could    have    borne    that. 


76  THE  TURN   OF  THE   SCREW 

She  gave  me  never  a  glance.  She  only  fixed 
the  child." 

Mrs.  Grose  tried  to  see  it.     "Fixed  her?" 

"  Ah,  with  such  awful  eyes  !  " 

She  stared  at  mine  as  if  they  might  really  have 
resembled  them.  "Do  you  mean  of  dislike?" 

"God  help  us,  no.  Of  something  much 
worse." 

"Worse  than  dislike?"  —  this  left  her  indeed 
at  a  loss. 

"  With  a  determination  —  indescribable.  With 
a  kind  of  fury  of  intention." 

I  made  her  turn  pale.     "Intention?" 

"To  get  hold  of  her."  Mrs.  Grose  — her 
eyes  just  lingering  on  mine  —  gave  a  shudder 
and  walked  to  the  window ;  and  while  she 
stood  there  looking  out  I  completed  my  state- 
ment. "  That's  what  Flora  knows." 

After  a  little  she  turned  round.  "  The  per- 
son was  in  black,  you  say?" 

"  In  mourning  —  rather  poor,  almost  shabby. 
But  —  yes  —  with  extraordinary  beauty. "  I  now 
recognised  to  what  I  had  at  last,  stroke  by 
stroke,  brought  the  victim  of  my  confidence,  for 
she  quite  visibly  weighed  this.  "Oh,  hand- 
some—  very,  very,"  I  insisted;  "wonderfully 
handsome.  But  infamous." 


THE  TUKN  OF   THE   SCKEW  77 

She  slowly  came  back  to  me.  "Miss  Jessel 
—  was  infamous."  She  once  more  took  my 
hand  in  both  her  own,  holding  it  as  tight  as 
if  to  fortify  me  against  the  increase  of  alarm 
I  might  draw  from  this  disclosure.  "  They  were 
both  infamous,"  she  finally  said. 

So,  for  a  little,  we  faced  it  once  more  to- 
gether; and  I  found  absolutely  a  degree  of 
help  in  seeing  it  now  so  straight.  "I  appre- 
ciate," I  said,  "the  great  decency  of  your  not 
having  hitherto  spoken;  but  the  time  has  cer- 
tainly come  to  give  me  the  whole  thing."  She 
appeared  to  assent  to  this,  but  still  only  in 
silence ;  seeing  which  I  went  on :  "I  must 
have  it  now.  Of  what  did  she  die?  Come, 
there  was  something  between  them." 

"There  was  everything." 

"In  spite  of  the  difference ?" 

"Oh,  of  their  rank,  their  condition"  —  she 
brought  it  woefully  out.  '•'•She  was  a  lady." 

I  turned  it  over;  I  again  saw.  "Yes  —  she 
was  a  lady." 

"And  he  so  dreadfully  below,"  said  Mrs. 
Grose. 

I  felt  that  I  doubtless  needn't  press  too  hard, 
in  such  company,  on  the  place  of  a  servant  in 
the  scale ;  but  there  was  nothing  to  prevent 


78  THE  TURN   OP  THE   SCREW 

an  acceptance  of  my  companion's  own  measure 
of  my  predecessor's  abasement.  There  was  a 
way  to  deal  with  that,  and  I  dealt;  the  more 
readily  for  my  full  vision  —  on  the  evidence  — 
of  our  employer's  late  clever,  good-looking 
"  own "  man ;  impudent,  assured,  spoiled,  de- 
praved. "  The  fellow  was  a  hound." 

Mrs.  Grose  considered  as  if  it  were  perhaps 
a  little  a  case  for  a  sense  of  shades.  "  I've 
never  seen  one  like  him.  He  did  what  he 
wished." 

"With  her?" 

"With  them  all." 

It  was  as  if  now  in  my  friend's  own  eyes 
Miss  Jessel  had  again  appeared.  I  seemed  at 
any  rate,  for  an  instant,  to  see  their  evocation 
of  her  as  distinctly  as  I  had  seen  her  by  the 
pond ;  and  I  brought  out  with  decision :  "  It 
must  have  been  also  what  she  wished ! " 

Mrs.  Grose's  face  signified  that  it  had  been 
indeed,  but  she  said  at  the  same  time :  "  Poor 
woman  —  she  paid  for  it  !  " 

"  Then  you  do  know  what  she  died  of  ? "  I 
asked. 

"No  —  I  know  nothing.  I  wanted  not  to 
know  $  I  was  glad  enough  I  didn't ;  and  I 
thanked  heaven  she  was  well  out  of  this  ! " 


THE  TUKN   OF   THE   SCREW  79 

"  Yet  you  had,  then,  your  idea " 

"  Of  her  real  reason  for  leaving  ?  Oh,  yes  — 
as  to  that.  She  couldn't  have  stayed.  Fancy 
it  here  —  for  a  governess  !  And  afterwards  I 
imagined  —  and  I  still  imagine.  And  what  I 
imagine  is  dreadful." 

"  Not  so  dreadful  as  what  I  do,"  I  replied  ; 
on  which  I  must  have  shown  her  —  as  I  was 
indeed  but  too  conscious  —  a  front  of  miserable 
defeat.  It  brought  out  again  all  her  compassion 
for  me,  and  at  the  renewed  touch  of  her  kind- 
ness my  power  to  resist  broke  down.  I  burst, 
as  I  had,  the  other  time,  made  her  burst,  into 
tears  ;  she  took  me  to  her  motherly  breast,  and 
my  lamentation  overflowed.  "  I  don't  do  it !  " 
I  sobbed  in  despair ;  "  I  don't  save  or  shield 
them  !  It's  far  worse  than  I  dreamed  —  they're 
lost ! " 


VIII 

WHAT  I  had  said  to  Mrs.  Grose  was  true 
enough. :  there  were  in  the  matter  I  had  put 
before  her  depths  and  possibilities  that  I  lacked 
resolution  to  sound  ;  so  that  when  we  met  once 
more  in  the  wonder  of  it  we  were  of  a  common 
mind  about  the  duty  of  resistance  to  extrava- 
gant fancies.  We  were  to  keep  our  heads  if  we 
should  keep  nothing  else  —  difficult  indeed  as 
that  might  be  in  the  face  of  what,  in  our  pro- 
digious experience,  was  least  to  be  questioned. 
Late  that  night,  while  the  house  slept,  we  had 
another  talk  in  my  room,  when  she  went  all 
the  way  with  me  as  to  its  being  beyond  doubt 
that  I  had  seen  exactly  what  I  had  seen.  To 
hold  her  perfectly  in  the  pinch  of  that,  I  found 
I  had  only  to  ask  her  how,  if  I  had  "made  it 
up,"  I  came  to  be  able  to  give,  of  each  of  the 
persons  appearing  to  me,  a  picture  disclosing, 
to  the  last  detail,  their  special  marks  —  a  por- 
trait on  the  exhibition  of  which  she  had  in- 
80 


THE  TURN  OP  THE   SCREW  81 

stantly  recognised  and  named  them.  She  wished, 
of  course,  —  small  blame  to  her  !  —  to  sink  the 
whole  subject ;  and  I  was  quick  to  assure  hen 
that  my  own  interest  in  it  had  now  violently 
taken  the  form  of  a  search  for  the  way  to  escape 
from  it.  I  encountered  her  on  the  ground  of  a 
probability  that  with  recurrence  —  for  recurrence 
we  took  for  granted  —  I  should  get  used  to  my 
danger,  distinctly  professing  that  my  personal 
exposure  had  suddenly  become  the  least  of  my 
discomforts.  It  was  my  new  suspicion  that  was 
intolerable ;  and  yet  even  to  this  complication  the 
later  hours  of  the  day  had  brought  a  little  ease. 

On  leaving  her,  after  my  first  outbreak,  I  had 
of  course  returned  to  my  pupils,  associating  the 
right  remedy  for  my  dismay  with  that  sense  of 
their  charm  which  I  had  already  found  to  be  a 
thing  I  could  positively  cultivate  and  which  had 
never  failed  me  yet.  I  had  simply,  in  other" 
words,  plunged  afresh  into  Flora's  special  soci- 
ety and  there  become  aware  —  it  was  almost  a 
luxury  !  —  that  she  could  put  her  little  conscious 
hand  straight  upon  the  spot  that  ached.  She 
had  looked  at  me  in  sweet  speculation  and  then 
had  accused  me  to  my  face  of  having  "cried." 
I  had  supposed  I  had  brushed  away  the  ugly 
signs:  but  I  could  literally — for  the  time,  at 


82  THE   TURN   OP   THE   SCREW 

all  events — rejoice,  under  this  fathomless  charity, 
that  they  had  not  entirely  disappeared.  To  gaze 
into  the  depths'  of  blue  of  the  child's  eyes  and 
pronounce  their  loveliness  a  trick  of  premature 
cunning  was  to  be  guilty  of  a  cynicism  in  prefer- 
ence to  which  I  naturally  preferred  to  abjure  my 
judgment  and,  so  far  as  might  be,  my  agitation. 
I  couldn't  abjure  for  merely  wanting  to,  but  I 
could  repeat  to  Mrs.  Grose  —  as  I  did  there,  over 
and  over,  in  the  small  hours  —  that  with  their 
voices  in  the  air,  their  pressure  on  one's  heart 
and  their  fragrant  faces  against  one's  cheek, 
everything  fell  to  the  ground  but  their  inca- 
pacity and  their  beauty.  It  was  a  pity  that, 
somehow,  to  settle  this  once  for  all,  I  had  equally 
to  re-enumerate  the  signs  of  subtlety  that,  in  the 
afternoon,  by  the  lake,  had  made  a  miracle  of 
my  show  of  self-possession.  It  was  a  pity  to 
be  obliged  to  re-investigate  the  certitude  of  the 
moment  itself  and  repeat  how  it  had  come  to  me 
as  a  revelation  that  the  inconceivable  communion 
I  then  surprised  was  a  matter,  for  either  party, 
of  habit.  It  was  a  pity  that  I  should  have  had 
to  quaver  out  again  the  reasons  for  my  not  hav- 
ing, in  my  delusion,  so  much  as  questioned  that 
the  little  girl  saw  our  visitant  even  as  I  actually 
saw  Mrs.  Grose  herself,  and  that  she  wanted,  by 


THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW  83 

just  so  much  as  she  did  thus  see,  to  make 
me  suppose  she  didn't,  and  at  the  same  time, 
without  showing  anything,  arrive  at  a  guess  as 
to  whether  I  myself  did  !  It  was  a  pity  that 
I  needed  once  more  to  describe  the  portentous 
little  activity  by  which  she  sought  to  divert  my 
attention  —  the  perceptible  increase  of  movement, 
the  greater  intensity  of  play,  the  singing,  the 
gabbling  of  nonsense,  and  the  invitation  to  romp. 
Yet  if  I  had  not  indulged,  to  prove  there  was 
nothing  in  it,  in  this  review,  I  should  have  missed 
the  two  or  three  dim  elements  of  comfort  that 
still  remained  to  me.  I  should  not  for  instance 
have  been  able  to  asseverate  to  my  friend  that 
I  was  certain — which  was  so  much  to  the  good 
—  that  I  at  least  had  not  betrayed  myself.  I 
should  not  have  been  prompted,  by  stress  of 
need,  by  desperation  of  mind,  —  I  scarce  know 
what  to  call  it,  —  to  invoke  such  further  aid  to 
intelligence  as  might  spring  from  pushing  my 
colleague  fairly  to  the  wall.  She  had  told  me, 
bit  by  bit,  under  pressure,  a  great  deal ;  but  a 
small  shifty  spot  on  the  wrong  side  of  it  all  still 
sometimes  brushed  my  brow  like  the  wing  of  a 
bat ;  and  I  remember  how  on  this  occasion  —  for 
the  sleeping  house  and  the  concentration  alike  of 
our  danger  and  our  watch  seemed  to  help  —  I  felt 


84  THE  TURN   OP  THE   SCREW 

the  importance  of  giving  the  last  jerk  to  the  cur- 
tain. "  I  don't  believe  anything  so  horrible,"  I 
recollect  saying ;  "  no,  let  us  put  it  definitely, 
my  dear,  that  I  don't.  But  if  I  did,  you  know, 
there's  a  thing  I  should  require  now,  just  without 
sparing  you  the  least  bit  more  —  oh,  not  a  scrap, 
come  !  —  to  get  out  of  you.  What  was  it  you 
had  in  mind  when,  in  our  distress,  before  Miles 
came  back,  over  the  letter  from  his  school,  you 
said,  under  my  insistence,  that  you  didn't  pre- 
tend for  him  that  he  had  not  literally  ever  been 
'bad'?  He  has  not  literally  'ever,'  in  these 
weeks  that  I  myself  have  lived  with  him  and 
so  closely  watched  him;  he  has  been  an  imper- 
turbable little  prodigy  of  delightful,  loveable 
goodness.  Therefore  you  might  perfectly  have 
made  the  claim  for  him  if  you  had  not,  as  it 
happened,  seen  an  exception  to  take.  What  was 
your  exception,  and  to  what  passage  in  your  per- 
sonal observation  of  him  did  you  refer  ?  " 

It  was  a  dreadfully  austere  inquiry,  but  levity 
was  not  our  note,  and,  at  any  rate,  before  the  grey 
dawn  admonished  us  to  separate  I  had  got  my 
answer.  What  my  friend  had  had  in  mind 
proved  to  be  immensely  to  the  purpose.  It  was 
neither  more  nor  less  than  the  circumstance  that 
for  a  period  of  several  months  Quint  and  the  boy 


THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  85 

Lad  been  perpetually  together.  It  was  in  fact  the 
very  appropriate  truth  that  she  had  ventured  to 
criticise  the  propriety,  to  hint  at  the  incongruity, 
of  so  close  an  alliance,  and  even  to  go  so  far  on 
the  subject  as  a  frank  overture  to  Miss  Jessel. 
Miss  Jessel  had,  with  a  most  strange  manner, 
requested  her  to  mind  her  business,  and  the  good 
woman  had,  on  this,  directly  approached  little 
Miles.  What  she  had  said  to  him,  since  I  pressed, 
was  that  she  liked  to  see  young  gentlemen  not 
forget  their  station. 

I  pressed  again,  of  course,  at  this.  "You  re- 
minded him  that  Quint  was  only  a  base  menial  ?  " 

"  As  you  might  say  !  And  it  was  his  answer, 
for  one  thing,  that  was  bad." 

"And  for  another  thing?"  I  waited.  "He 
repeated  your  words  to  Quint?  " 

"No,  not  that.  It's  just  what  he  wouldn't!'" 
she  could  still  impress  upon  me.  "  I  was  sure,  at 
any  rate,"  she  added,  "  that  he  didn't.  But  he 
denied  certain  occasions." 

"  What  occasions  ?  " 

"  When  they  had  been  about  together  quite  as 
if  Quint  were  his  tutor —  and  a  very  grand  one  — 
and  Miss  Jessel  only  for  the  little  lady.  When 
he  had  gone  off  with  the  fellow,  I  mean,  and  spent 
hours  with  him." 


86  THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCREW 

"He  then  prevaricated  about  it — he  said  he 
hadn't  ?  "  Her  assent  was  clear  enough  to  cause 
me  to  add  in  a  moment :  "I  see.  He  lied." 

"  Oh  !  "  Mrs.  Grose  mumbled.  This  was  a 
suggestion  that  it  didn't  matter  ;  which  indeed 
she  backed  up  by  a  further  remark.  "  You  see, 
after  all,  Miss  Jessel  didn't  mind.  She  didn't 
forbid  him." 

I  considered.  "  Did  he  put  that  to  you  as  a 
justification  ?  " 

At  this  she  dropped  again.  "No,  he  never 
spoke  of  it." 

"  Never  mentioned  her  in  connection  with 
Quint  ?  " 

She  saw,  visibly  flushing,  where  I  was  coming 
out.  "  Well,  he  didn't  show  anything.  He 
denied,"  she  repeated;  "he  denied." 

Lord,  how  I  pressed  her  now  I  "  So  that  you 
could  see  he  knew  what  was  between  the  two 
wretches  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  —  I  don't  know !  "  the  poor 
woman  groaned. 

"  You  do  know,  you  dear  thing,"  I  replied  ; 
"  only  you  haven't  my  dreadful  boldness  of  mind, 
and  you  keep  back,  out  of  timidity  and  modesty 
and  delicacy,  even  the  impression  that,  in  the  past, 
when  you  had,  without  my  aid,  to  flounder  about 


THE  TURN   OF  THE   SCREW  87 

in  silence,  most  of  all  made  you  miserable.  But 
I  shall  get  it  out  of  you  yet !  There  was  some- 
thing in  the  boy  that  suggested  to  you,"  I  con- 
tinued, "that  he  covered  and  concealed  their  re- 
lation." 

"  Oh,  he  couldn't  prevent " 

"  Your  learning  the  truth  ?  I  dare  say  !  But, 
heavens,"  I  fell,  with  vehemence,  a-thinking, 
"  what  it  shows  that  they  must,  to  that  extent, 
have  succeeded  in  making  of  him  !  " 

"  Ah,  nothing  that's  not  nice  now  !  "  Mrs.  Grose 
lugubriously  pleaded. 

"  I  don't  wonder  you  looked  queer,"  I  per- 
sisted, "  when  I  mentioned  to  you  the  letter  from 
his  school !  " 

"  I  doubt  if  I  looked  as  queer  as  you ! "  she 
retorted  with  homely  force.  "  And  if  he  was  so 
bad  then  as  that  comes  to,  how  is  he  such  an 
angel  now  ?  " 

"  Yes,  indeed  —  and  if  he  was  a  fiend  at  school ! 
How,  how,  how  ?  Well,"  I  said  in  my  torment, 
"  you  must  put  it  to  me  again,  but  I  shall  not  be 
able  to  tell  you  for  some  days.  Only,  put  it  to 
me  again  !  "  I  cried  in  a  way  that  made  my  friend 
stare.  "There  are  directions  in  which  I  must 
not  for  the  present  let  myself  go."  Meanwhile 
I  returned  to  her  first  example  —  the  one  to 


88  THE  TUKN  OF  THE  SCREW 

which  she  had  just  previously  referred  —  of  the 
boy's  happy  capacity  for  an  occasional  slip.  "  If 
Quint  —  on  your  remonstrance  at  the  time  you 
speak  of  —  was  a  base  menial,  one  of  the  things 
Miles  said  to  you,  I  find  myself  guessing,  was 
that  you  were  another."  Again  her  admission 
was  so  adequate  that  I  continued :  "  And  you 
forgave  him  that  ?  " 

"  Wouldn't  you?" 

"  Oh,  yes  !  "  And  we  exchanged  there,  in  the 
stillness,  a  sound  of  the  oddest  amusement.  Then 
I  went  on :  "  At  all  events,  while  he  was  with 
the  man " 

"Miss  Flora  was  with  the  woman.  It  suited 
them  all !  " 

It  suited  me  too,  I  felt,  only  too  well ;  by 
which  I  mean  that  it  suited  exactly  the  particu- 
larly deadly  view  I  was  in  the  very  act  of  for- 
bidding myself  to  entertain.  But  I  so  far  suc- 
ceeded in  checking  the  expression  of  this  view 
that  I  will  throw,  just  here,  no  further  light  on 
it  than  may  be  offered  by  the  mention  of  my 
final  observation  to  Mrs.  Grose.  "  His  having 
lied  and  been  impudent  are,  I  confess,  less  en- 
gaging specimens  than  I  had  hoped  to  have 
from  you  of  the  outbreak  in  him  of  the  little 
natural  man.  Still,"  I  mused,  "they  must  do, 


THE  TURN  OP  THE  SCREW  89 

for  they  make  me  feel  more  than  ever  that  I 
must  watch." 

It  made  me  blush,  the  next  minute,  to  see  in 
my  friend's  face  how  much  more  unreservedly 
she  had  forgiven  him  than  her  anecdote  struck 
me  as  presenting  to  my  own  tenderness  an  occa- 
sion for  doing.  This  came  out  when,  at  the 
schoolroom  door,  she  quitted  me.  "Surely  you 
don't  accuse  him " 

"Of  carrying  on  an  intercourse  that  he  con- 
ceals from  me  ?  Ah,  remember  that,  until  further 
evidence,  I  now  accuse  nobody."  Then,  before 
shutting  her  out  to  go,  by  another  passage,  to  her 
own  place,  "  I  must  just  wait,"  I  wound  up. 


IX 


I  WAITED  and  waited,  and  the  days,  as  they 
elapsed,  took  something  from  my  consternation. 
A  very  few  of  them,  in  fact,  passing,  in  constant 
sight  of  my  pupils,  without  a  fresh  incident, 
sufficed  to  give  to  grievous  fancies  and  even  to 
odious  memories  a  kind  of  brush  of  the  sponge. 
I  have  spoken  of  the  surrender  to  their  ex- 
traordinary childish  grace  as  a  thing  I  could 
actively  cultivate,  and  it  may  be  imagined  if  I 
neglected  now  to  address  myself  to  this  source 
for  whatever  it  would  yield.  Stranger  than  I 
can  express,  certainly,  was  the  effort  to  struggle 
against  my  new  lights ;  it  would  doubtless  have 
been,  however,  a  greater  tension  still  had  it  not 
been  so  frequently  successful.  I  used  to  wonder 
how  my  little  charges  could  help  guessing  that 
I  thought  strange  things  about  them;  and  the 
circumstance  that  these  things  only  made  them 
more  interesting  was  not  by  itself  a  direct  aid  to 
keeping  them  in  the  dark.  I  trembled  lest  they 


THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  91 

should  see  that  they  were  so  immensely  more 
interesting.  Putting  things  at  the  worst,  at  all 
events,  as  in  meditation  I  so  often  did,  any  cloud- 
ing of  their  innocence  could  only  be  —  blameless 
and  foredoomed  as  they  were  —  a  reason  the  more 
for  taking  risks.  There  were  moments  when,  by 
an  irresistible  impulse,  I  found  myself  catching 
them  up  and  pressing  them  to  my  heart.  As  soon 
as  I  had  done  so  I  used  to  say  to  myself  :  "  What 
will  they  think  of  that?  Doesn't  it  betray  too 
much  ?  "  It  would  have  been  easy  to  get  into  a 
sad,  wild  tangle  about  how  much  I  might  betray ; 
but  the  real  account,  I  feel,  of  the  hours  of  peace 
that  I  could  still  enjoy  was  that  the  immediate 
charm  of  my  companions  was  a  beguilement  still 
effective  even  under  the  shadow  of  the  possibility 
that  it  was  studied.  For  if  it  occurred  to  me  that 
I  might  occasionally  excite  suspicion  by  the  little 
outbreaks  of  my  sharper  passion  for  them,  so  too 
I  remember  wondering  if  I  mightn't  see  a  queer- 
ness  in  the  traceable  increase  of  their  own  demon- 
strations. 

They  were  at  this  period  extravagantly  and 
preternaturally  fond  of  me  ;  which,  after  all,  I 
could  reflect,  was  no  more  than  a  graceful  response 
in  children  perpetually  bowed  over  and  hugged. 
The  homage  of  which  they  were  so  lavish  sue- 


92  THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW 

ceeded,  in  truth,  for  my  nerves,  quite  as  well  as  if 
I  never  appeared  to  myself,  as  I  may  say,  literally 
to  catch  them  at  a  purpose  in  it.  They  had 
never,  I  think,  wanted  to  do  so  many  things  for 
their  poor  protectress;  I  mean  —  though  they  got 
their  lessons  better  and  better,  which  was  natu- 
rally what  would  please  her  most  —  in  the  way  of 
diverting,  entertaining,  surprising  her  ;  reading 
her  passages,  telling  her  stories,  acting  her  cha- 
rades, pouncing  out  at  her,  in  disguises,  as  ani- 
mals and  historical  characters,  and  above  all  aston- 
ishing her  by  the  "  pieces  "  they  had  secretly  got 
by  heart  and  could  interminably  recite.  I  should 
never  get  to  the  bottom  —  were  I  to  let  myself  go 
even  now  —  of  the  prodigious  private  commentary, 
all  under  still  more  private  correction,  with  which, 
in  these  days,  I  overs  cored  their  full  hours.  They 
had  shown  me  from  the  first  a  facility  for  every- 
thing, a  general  faculty  which,  taking  a  fresh  start, 
achieved  remarkable  flights.  They  got  their  little 
tasks  as  if  they  loved  them,  and  indulged,  from 
the  mere  exuberance  of  the  gift,  in  the  most  unim- 
posed  little  miracles  of  memory.  They  not  only 
popped  out  at  me  as  tigers  and  as  Romans,  but  as 
Shakespeareans,  astronomers,  and  navigators. 
This  was  so  singularly  the  case  that  it  had  pre- 
sumably much  to  do  with  the  fact  as  to  which, 


THE  TURN   OP  THE  SCREW  93 

at  the  present  day,  I  am  at  a  loss  for  a  different 
explanation:  I  allude  to  my  unnatural  composure 
on  the  subject  of  another  school  for  Miles.  What 
I  remember  is  that  I  was  content  not,  for  the  time, 
to  open  the  question,  and  that  contentment  must 
have  sprung  from  the  sense  of  his  perpetually 
striking  show  of  cleverness.  He  was  too  clever  for 
a  bad  governess,  for  a  parson's  daughter,  to  spoil; 
and  the  strangest  if  not  the  brightest  thread  in  the 
pensive  embroidery  I  just  spoke  of  was  the  im- 
pression I  might  have  got,  if  I  had  dared  to  work 
it  out,  that  he  was  under  some  influence  operating 
in  his  small  intellectual  life  as  a  tremendous  in- 
citement. 

If  it  was  easy  to  reflect,  however,  that  such  a 
boy  could  postpone  school,  it  was  at  least  as 
marked  that  for  such  a  boy  to  have  been  "  kicked 
out "  by  a  school-master  was  a  mystification  with- 
out end.  Let  me  add  that  in  their  company  now 

—  and  I  was  careful  almost  never  to  be  out  of  it 

—  I  could  follow  no  scent  very  far.     We  lived  in 
a  cloud  of  music  and  love  and  success  and  private 
theatricals.     The  musical  sense   in   each  of  the 
children  was  of  the  quickest,  but  the  elder  in  es- 
pecial had  a  marvellous  knack  of   catching   and 
repeating.     The  schoolroom  piano  broke  into  all 
gruesome  fancies;  and  when  that  failed  there  were 


94  THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW 

confabulations  in  corners,  with  a  sequel  of  one  of 
them  going  out  in  the  highest  spirits  in  order  to 
"  come  in  "  as  something  new.  I  had  had  brothers 
myself,  and  it  was  no  revelation  to  me  that  little 
girls  could  be  slavish  idolaters  of  little  boys.  What 
surpassed  everything  was  that  there  was  a  little 
boy  in  the  world  who  could  have  for  the  inferior 
age,  sex,  and  intelligence  so  fine  a  consideration. 
They  were  extraordinarily  at  one,  and  to  say  that 
they  never  either  quarrelled  or  complained  is  to 
make  the  note  of  praise  coarse  for  their  quality  of 
sweetness.  Sometimes,  indeed,  when  I  dropped 
into  coarseness,  I  perhaps  came  across  traces  of 
little  understandings  between  them  by  which  one 
of  them  should  keep  me  occupied  while  the  other 
slipped  away.  There  is  a  naif  side,  I  suppose,  in 
all  diplomacy;  but  if  my  pupils  practised  upon 
me,  it  was  surely  with  the  minimum  of  grossness. 
It  was  all  in  the  other  quarter  that,  after  a  lull, 
the  grossness  broke  out. 

I  find  that  I  really  hang  back ;  but  I  must 
take  my  plunge.  In  going  on  with  the  record 
of  what  was  hideous  at  Ely,  I  not  only  challenge 
the  most  liberal  faith  —  for  which  I  little  care ; 
but  —  and  this  is  another  matter  —  I  renew  what 
I  myself  suffered,  I  again  push  my  way  through 
it  to  the  end.  There  came  suddenly  an  hour 


THE   TURN    OF   THE   SCEEW  95 

after  which,  as  I  look  back,  the  affair  seems  to 
me  to  have  been  all  pure  suffering;  but  I  have 
at  least  reached  the  heart  of  it,  and  the  straight- 
est  road  out  is  doubtless  to  advance.  One  even- 
ing—  with  nothing  to  lead  up  or  to  prepare  it 
—  I  felt  the  cold  touch  of  the  impression  that 
had  breathed  on  me  the  night  of  my  arrival  and 
which,  much  lighter  then,  as  I  have  mentioned, 
I  should  probably  have  made  little  of  in  memory 
had  my  subsequent  sojourn  been  less  agitated. 
I  had  not  gone  to  bed ;  I  sat  reading  by  a  couple 
of  candles.  There  was  a  roomful  of  old  books 
at  Bly — last-century  fiction,  some  of  it,  which, 
to  the  extent  of  a  distinctly  deprecated  renown, 
but  never  to  so  much  as  that  of  a  stray  specimen, 
had  reached  the  sequestered  home  and  appealed 
to  the  unavowed  curiosity  of  my  youth.  I  re- 
member that  the  book  I  had  in  my  hand  was 
Fielding's  Amelia;  also  that  I  was  wholly  awake. 
I  recall  further  both  a  general  conviction  that  it 
was  horribly  late  and  a  particular  objection  to 
looking  at  my  watch.  I  figure,  finally,  that  the 
white  curtain  draping,  in  the  fashion  of  those 
days,  the  head  of  Flora's  little  bed,  shrouded,  as 
I  had  assured  myself  long  before,  the  perfection 
of  childish  rest.  I  recollect  in  short  that,  though 
I  was  deeply  interested  in  my  author,  I  found 


96  THE  TURN  OP  THE  SCREW 

myself,  at  the  turn  of  a  page  and  with  his  spell 
all  scattered,  looking  straight  up  from  him  and 
hard  at  the  door  of  my  room.  There  was  a 
moment  during  which  I  listened,  reminded  of 
the  faint  sense  I  had  had,  the  first  night,  of  there 
being  something  undefineably  astir  in  the  house, 
and  noted  the  soft  breath  of  the  open  casement 
just  move  the  half-drawn  blind.  Then,  with  all 
the  marks  of  a  deliberation  that  must  have 
seemed  magnificent  had  there  been  anyone  to 
admire  it,  I  laid  down  my  book,  rose  to  my  feet, 
and,  taking  a  candle,  went  straight  out  of  the 
room  and,  from  the  passage,  on  which  my  light 
made  little  impression,  noiselessly  closed  and 
locked  the  door. 

I  can  say  now  neither  what  determined  nor 
what  guided  me,  but  I  went  straight  along  the 
lobby,  holding  my  candle  high,  till  I  came  within 
sight  of  the  tall  window  that  presided  over  the 
great  turn  of  the  staircase.  At  this  point  I  pre- 
cipitately found  myself  aware  of  three  things. 
They  were  practically  simultaneous,  yet  they  had 
flashes  of  succession.  My  candle,  under  a  bold 
flourish,  went  out,  and  I  perceived,  by  the  un- 
covered window,  that  the  yielding  dusk  of  earliest 
morning  rendered  it  unnecessary.  Without  it, 
the  next  instant,  I  saw  that  there  was  someone 


THE  TUKN   OF  THE  SCREW  97 

on  the  stair.  I  speak  of  sequences,  but  I  required 
no  lapse  of  seconds  to  stiffen  myself  for  a  third 
encounter  with  Quint.  The  apparition  had 
reached  the  landing  half-way  up  and  was  there- 
fore on  the  spot  nearest  the  window,  where  at 
sight  of  me,  it  stopped  short  and  fixed  me  exactly 
as  it  had  fixed  me  from  the  tower  and  from  the 
garden.  He  knew  me  as  well  as  I  knew  him ; 
and  so,  in  the  cold,  faint  twilight,  with  a  glimmer 
in  the  high  glass  and  another  on  the  polish  of  the 
oak  stair  below,  we  faced  each  other  in  our  com- 
mon intensity.  He  was  absolutely,  on  this  occa- 
sion, a  living,  detestable,  dangerous  presence. 
But  that  was  not  the  wonder  of  wonders  ;  I 
reserve  this  distinction  for  quite  another  circum- 
stance :  the  circumstance  that  dread  had  unmis- 
takeably  quitted  me  and  that  there  was  nothing  in 
me  there  that  didn't  meet  and  measure  him. 

I  had  plenty  of  anguish  after  that  extraordinary 
moment,  but  I  had,  thank  God,  no  terror.  And 
he  knew  I  had  not  —  I  found  myself  at  the  end 
of  an  instant  magnificently  aware  of  this.  I  felt, 
in  a  fierce  rigour  of  confidence,  that  if  I  stood 
my  ground  a  minute  I  should  cease  —  for  the 
time,  at  least  —  to  have  him  to  reckon  with  ;  and 
during  the  minute,  accordingly,  the  thing  was  as 
human  and  hideous  as  a  real  interview  :  hideous 


98  THE  TURN   OP  THE  SCREW 

•just  because  it  was  human,  as  human  as  to  have 
met  alone,  in  the  small  hours,  in  a  sleeping  house, 
some  enemy,  some  adventurer,  some  criminal.  It 
was  the  dead  silence  of  our  long  gaze  at  such 
close  quarters  that  gave  the  whole  horror,  huge 
as  it  was,  its  only  note  of  the  unnatural.  If  I 
had  met  a  murderer  in  such  a  place  and  at  such 
an  hour,  we  still  at  least  would  have  spoken. 
Something  would  have  passed,  in  life,  between 
us ;  if  nothing  had  passed  one  of  us  would  have 
moved.  The  moment  was  so  prolonged  that  it 
would  have  taken  but  little  more  to  make  me 
doubt  if  even  /were  in  life.  I  can't  express  what 
followed  it  save  by  saying  that  the  silence  itself 
—  which  was  indeed  in  a  manner  an  attestation 
of  my  strength  —  became  the  element  into  which 
I  saw  the  figure  disappear  ;  in  which  I  definitely 
saw  it  turn  as  I  might  have  seen  the  low  wretch 
to  which  it  had  once  belonged  turn  on  receipt  of 
an  order,  and  pass,  with  my  eyes  on  the  villain- 
ous back  that  no  hunch  could  have  more  dis- 
figured, straight  down  the  staircase  and  into  the 
darkness  in  which  the  next  bend  was  lost. 


I  REMAINED  awhile  at  the  top  of  the  stair,  but 
with  the  effect  presently  of  understanding  that 
when  my  visitor  had  gone,  he  had  gone :  then  I 
returned  to  my  room.  The  foremost  thing  I  saw 
there  by  the  light  of  the  candle  I  had  left  burning 
was  that  Flora's  little  bed  was  empty;  and  on 
this  I  caught  my  breath  with  all  the  terror  that, 
five  minutes  before,  I  had  been  able  to  resist.  I 
dashed  at  the  place  in  which  I  had  left  her  lying 
and  over  which  (for  the  small  silk  counterpane 
and  the  sheets  were  disarranged)  the  white  cur- 
tains had  been  deceivingly  pulled  forward ;  then 
my  step,  to  my  unutterable  relief,  produced  an 
answering  sound:  I  perceived  an  agitation  of 
the  window-blind,  and  the  child,  ducking  down, 
emerged  rosily  from  the  other  side  of  it.  She 
stood  there  in  so  much  of  her  candour  and  so 
little  of  her  nightgown,  with  her  pink  bare  feet 
and  the  golden  glow  of  her  curls.  She  looked 
intensely  grave,  and  I  had  never  had  such  a  sense 


100  THE  TUKN   OF  THE   SCREW 

of  losing  an  advantage  acquired  (the  thrill  of 
which  had  just  been  so  prodigious)  as  on  my 
consciousness  that  she  addressed  me  with  a  re- 
proach. "  You  naughty  :  where  have  you  been  ?  " 
—  instead  of  challenging  her  own  irregularity  I 
found  myself  arraigned  and  explaining.  She  her- 
self explained,  for  that  matter,  with  the  loveliest, 
eagerest  simplicity.  She  had  known  suddenly,  as 
she  lay  there,  that  I  was  out  of  the  room,  and  had 
jumped  up  to  see  what  had  become  of  me.  I  had 
dropped,  with  the  joy  of  her  reappearance,  back 
into  my  chair  —  feeling  then,  and  then  only,  a 
little  faint ;  and  she  had  pattered  straight  over  to 
me,  thrown  herself  upon  my  knee,  given  herself 
to  be  held  with  the  flame  of  the  candle  full  in  the 
wonderful  little  face  that  was  still  flushed  with 
sleep.  I  remember  closing  my  eyes  an  instant, 
yieldingly,  consciously,  as  before  the  excess  of 
something  beautiful  that  shone  out  of  the  blue  of 
her  own.  "  You  were  looking  for  me  out  of  the 
window?"  I  said.  "You  thought  I  might  be 
walking  in  the  grounds?" 

"  Well,  you  know,  I  thought  someone  was  "  — 
she  never  blanched  as  she  smiled  out  that  at  me. 

Oh,  how  I  looked  at  her  now  !  "And  did  you 
see  anyone  ?  " 

"Ah,  wo/"  she  returned,  almost  with  the  full 


THE   TURN  OF   THE  SCREW  101 

privilege  of  childish  inconsequence,  resentfully, 
though  with  a  long  sweetness  in  her  little  drawl 
of  the  negative. 

At  that  moment,  in  the  state  of  my  nerves,  I 
absolutely  believed  she  lied ;  and  if  I  once  more 
closed  my  eyes  it  was  before  the  dazzle  of  the 
three  or  four  possible  ways  in  which  I  might  take 
this  up.  One  of  these,  for  a  moment,  tempted 
me  with  such  singular  intensity  that,  to  with- 
stand it,  I  must  have  gripped  my  little  girl  with 
a  spasm  that,  wonderfully,  she  submitted  to 
without  a  cry  or  a  sign  of  fright.  Why  not 
break  out  at  her  on  the  spot  and  have  it  all  over  ? 
—  give  it  to  her  straight  in  her  lovely  little 
lighted  face  ?  "  You  see,  you  see,  you  know  that 
you  do  and  that  you  already  quite  suspect  I 
believe  it ;  therefore  why  not  frankly  confess 
it  to  me,  so  that  we  may  at  least  live  with  it 
together  and  learn  perhaps,  in  the  strangeness 
of  our  fate,  where  we  are  and  what  it  means  ?  " 
This  solicitation  dropped,  alas,  as  it  came  :  if  I 
could  immediately  have  succumbed  to  it  I  might 

have    spared    myself well  you'll   see   what. 

Instead  of  succumbing  I  sprang  again  to  my  feet, 
looked  at  her  bed,  and  took  a  helpless  middle 
way.  "Why  did  you  pull  the  curtain  over  the 
place  to  make  me  think  you  were  still  there?" 


102  THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCKEW 

Flora  luminously  considered;  after  which, 
with  her  little  divine  smile  :  "  Because  I  don't 
like  to  frighten  you  !  " 

"  But  if  I  had,  by  your  idea,  gone  out ?  " 

She  absolutely  declined  to  be  puzzled ;  she 
turned  her  eyes  to  the  flame  of  the  candle  as  if 
the  question  were  as  irrelevant,  or  at  any  rate 
as  impersonal,  as  Mrs.  Marcet  or  nine-times-nine. 
"  Oh,  but  you  know,"  she  quite  adequately  an- 
swered, "that  you  might  come  back,  you  dear, 
and  that  you  have!"  And  after  a  little,  when 
she  had  got  into  bed,  I  had,  for  a  long  time,  by 
almost  sitting  on  her  to  hold  her  hand,  to 
prove  that  I  recognised  the  pertinence  of  my 
return. 

You  may  imagine  the  general  complexion, 
from  that  moment,  of  my  nights.  I  repeatedly 
sat  up  till  I  didn't  know  when ;  I  selected  mo- 
ments when  my  room-mate  unmistakeably  slept, 
and,  stealing  out,  took  noiseless  turns  in  the 
passage  and  even  pushed  as  far  as  to  where  I 
had  last  met  Quint.  But  I  never  met  him 
there  again ;  and  I  may  as  well  say  at  once  that 
I  on  no  other  occasion  saw  him  in  the  house. 
I  just  missed,  on  the  staircase,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  different  adventure.  Looking  down  it 
from  the  top  I  once  recognised  the  presence  of 


THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW  103 

a  woman  seated  on  one  of  the  lower  steps  with 
her  back  presented  to  me,  her  body  half  bowed 
and  her  head,  in  an  attitude  of  woe,  in  her 
hands.  I  had  been  there  but  an  instant,  how- 
ever, when  she  vanished  without  looking  round 
at  me.  I  knew,  none  the  less,  exactly  what 
dreadful  face  she  had  to  show ;  and  I  wondered 
whether,  if  instead  of  being  above  I  had  been 
below,  I  should  have  had,  for  going  up,  the 
same  nerve  I  had  lately  shown  Quint.  Well, 
there  continued  to  be  plenty  of  chance  for 
nerve.  On  the  eleventh  night  after  my  latest 
encounter  with  that  gentleman  —  they  were  all 
numbered  now  —  I  had  an  alarm  that  perilously 
skirted  it  and  that  indeed,  from  the  particular 
quality  of  its  unexpectedness,  proved  quite  my 
sharpest  shock.  It  was  precisely  the  first 
night  during  this  series  that,  weary  with  watch- 
ing, I  had  felt  that  I  might  again  without  laxity 
lay  myself  down  at  my  old  hour.  I  slept  im- 
mediately and,  as  I  afterwards  knew,  till  about 
one  o'clock ;  but  when  I  woke  it  was  to  sit 
straight  up,  as  completely  roused  as  if  a  hand 
had  shook  me.  I  had  left  a  light  burning,  but 
it  was  now  out,  and  I  felt  an  instant  certainty 
that  Flora  had  extinguished  it.  This  brought 
me  to  my  feet  and  straight,  in  the  darkness, 


104  THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW 

to  her  bed,  which  I  found  she  had  left.  A 
glance  at  the  window  enlightened  me  further, 
and  the  striking  of  a  match  completed  the 
picture. 

The  child  had  again  got  up  —  this  time  blow- 
ing out  the  taper,  and  had  again,  for  some  pur- 
pose of  observation  or  response,  squeezed  in 
behind  the  blind  and  was  peering  out  into  the 
night.  That  she  now  saw  —  as  she  had  not,  I 
had  satisfied  myself,  the  previous  time  —  was 
proved  to  me  by  the  fact  that  she  was  dis- 
turbed neither  by  my  re-illumination  nor  by  the 
haste  I  made  to  get  into  slippers  and  into  a 
wrap.  Hidden,  protected,  absorbed,  she  evi- 
dently rested  on  the  sill  —  the  casement  opened 
forward  —  and  gave  herself  up.  There  was  a 
great  still  moon  to  help  her,  and  this  fact  had 
counted  in  my  quick  decision.  She  was  face 
to  face  with  the  apparition  we  had  met  at  the 
lake,  and  could  now  communicate  with  it  as 
she  had  not  then  been  able  to  do.  What  I,  on 
my  side,  had  to  care  for  was,  without  disturb- 
ing her,  to  reach,  from  the  corridor,  some  other 
window  in  the  same  quarter.  I  got  to  the  door 
without  her  hearing  me  ;  I  got  out  of  it,  closed 
it  and  listened,  from  the  other  side,  for  some 
sound  from  her.  While  I  stood  in  the  passage 


THE  TURN  OF  THE   SCREW  105 

I  had  my  eyes  on  her  brother's  door,  which 
was  but  ten  steps  off  and  which,  indescribably, 
produced  in  me  a  renewal  of  the  strange  im- 
pulse that  I  lately  spoke  of  as  my  temptation. 
What  if  I  should  go  straight  in  and  march  to 
his  window?  —  what  if,  by  risking  to  his  boy- 
ish bewilderment  a  revelation  of  my  motive,  I 
should  throw  across  the  rest  of  the  mystery  the 
long  halter  of  my  boldness  ? 

This  thought  held  me  sufficiently  to  make  me 
cross  to  his  threshold  and  pause  again.  I  pre- 
ternaturally  listened  ;  I  figured  to  myself  what 
might  portentously  be  ;  I  wondered  if  his  bed 
were  also  empty  and  he  too  were  secretly  at 
watch.  It  was  a  deep,  soundless  minute,  at  the 
end  of  which  my  impulse  failed.  He  was  quiet ; 
he  might  be  innocent ;  the  risk  was  hideous ;  I 
turned  away.  There  was  a  figure  in  the  grounds 
—  a  figure  prowling  for  a  sight,  the  visitor  with 
whom  Flora  was  engaged ;  but  it  was  not  the 
visitor  most  concerned  with  my  boy.  I  hesitated 
afresh,  but  on  other  grounds  and  only  a  few 
seconds;  then  I  had  made  my  choice.  There 
were  empty  rooms  at  Ely,  and  it  was  only  a 
question  of  choosing  the  right  one.  The  right 
one  suddenly  presented  itself  to  me  as  the  lower 
one  —  though  high  above  the  gardens  —  in  the 


106  THE  TUKN   OF  THE  SCREW 

solid  corner  of  the  house  that  I  have  spoken  of  as 
the  old  tower.  This  was  a  large,  square  chamber, 
arranged  with  some  state  as  a  bedroom,  the  ex- 
travagant size  of  which  made  it  so  inconvenient 
that  it  had  not  for  years,  though  kept  by  Mrs. 
Grose  in  exemplary  order,  been  occupied.  I  had 
often  admired  it  and  I  knew  my  way  about  in  it ; 
I  had  only,  after  just  faltering  at  the  first  chill 
gloom  of  its  disuse,  to  pass  across  it  and  unbolt 
as  quietly  as  I  could  one  of  the  shutters.  Achiev- 
ing this  transit,  I  uncovered  the  glass  without  a 
sound  and,  applying  my  face  to  the  pane,  was 
able,  the  darkness  without  being  much  less  than 
within,  to  see  that  I  commanded  the  right  direc- 
tion. Then  I  saw  something  more.  The  moon 
made  the  night  extraordinarily  penetrable  and 
showed  me  on  the  lawn  a  person,  diminished  by 
distance,  who  stood  there  motionless  and  as  if 
fascinated,  looking  up  to  where  I  had  appeared — 
looking,  that  is,  not  so  much  straight  at  me  as  at 
something  that  was  apparently  above  me.  There 
was  clearly  another  person  above  me  —  there  was 
a  person  on  the  tower ;  but  the  presence  on  the 
lawn  was  not  in  the  least  what  I  had  conceived 
and  had  confidently  hurried  to  meet.  The  pres- 
ence on  the  lawn  —  I  felt  sick  as  I  made  it  out  — 
was  poor  little  Miles  himself. 


XI 


IT  was  not  till  late  next  day  that  I  spoke  to 
Mrs.  Grose ;  the  rigour  with  which  I  kept  my 
pupils  in  sight  making  it  often  difficult  to  meet 
her  privately,  and  the  more  as  we  each  felt  the 
importance  of  not  provoking — -on  the  part  of 
the  servants  quite  as  much  as  on  that  of  the 
children  —  any  suspicion  of  a  secret  flurry  or 
of  a  discussion  of  mysteries.  I  drew  a  great 
security  in  this  particular  from  her  mere  smooth 
aspect.  There  was  nothing  in  her  fresh  face 
to  pass  on  to  others  my  horrible  confidences. 
She  believed  me,  I  was  sure,  absolutely :  if  she 
hadn't  I  don't  know  what  would  have  become 
of  me,  for  I  couldn't  have  borne  the  business 
alone.  But  she  was  a  magnificent  monument 
to  the  blessing  of  a  want  of  imagination,  and 
if  she  could  see  in  our  little  charges  nothing 
but  their  beauty  and  amiability,  their  happiness 
and  cleverness,  she  had  no  direct  communication 
with  the  sources  of  my  trouble.  If  they  had 
107 


108  THE  TURN   OP  THE  SCREW 

been  at  all  visibly  blighted  or  battered,  she 
would  doubtless  have  grown,  on  tracing  it  back, 
haggard  enough  to  match  them ;  as  matters 
stood,  however,  I  could  feel  her,  when  she 
surveyed  them,  with  her  large  white  arms  folded 
and  the  habit  of  serenity  in  all  her  look,  thank 
the  Lord's  mercy  that  if  they  were  ruined  the 
pieces  would  still  serve.  Flights  of  fancy  gave 
place,  in  her  mind,  to  a  steady  fireside  glow, 
and  I  had  already  begun  to  perceive  how,  with 
the  development  of  the  conviction  that  —  as 
time  went  on  without  a  public  accident  —  our 
young  things  could,  after  all,  look  out  for 
themselves,  she  addressed  her  greatest  solicitude 
to  the  sad  case  presented  by  their  instructress. 
That,  for  myself,  was  a  sound  simplification : 
I  could  engage  that,  to  the  world,  my  face 
should  tell  no  tales,  but  it  would  have  been, 
in  the  conditions,  an  immense  added  strain  to 
find  myself  anxious  about  hers. 

At  the  hour  I  now  speak  of  she  had  joined 
me,  under  pressure,  on  the  terrace,  where,  with 
the  lapse  of  the  season,  the  afternoon  sun  was 
now  agreeable ;  and  we  sat  there  together  while, 
before  us,  at  a  distance,  but  within  call  if  we 
wished,  the  children  strolled  to  and  fro  in  one 
of  their  most  manageable  moods.  They  moved 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW        109 

slowly,  in  unison,  below  us,  over  the  lawn,  the 
boy,  as  they  went,  reading  aloud  from  a  story- 
book and  passing  his  arm  round  his  sister  to 
keep  her  quite  in  touch.  Mrs.  Grose  watched 
them  with  positive  placidity ;  then  I  caught 
the  suppressed  intellectual  creak  with  which 
she  conscientiously  turned  to  take  from  me  a 
view  of  the  back  of  the  tapestry.  I  had  made 
her  a  receptacle  of  lurid  things,  but  there  was 
an  odd  recognition  of  my  superiority  —  my 
accomplishments  and  my  function  —  in  her  pa- 
tience under  my  pain.  She  offered  her  mind 
to  my  disclosures  as,  had  I  wished  to  mix  a 
witch's  broth  and  proposed  it  with  assurance, 
she  would  have  held  out  a  large  clean  saucepan. 
This  had  become  thoroughly  her  attitude  by 
the  time  that,  in  my  recital  of  the  events  of  the 
night,  I  reached  the  point  of  what  Miles  had 
said  to  me  when,  after  seeing  him,  at  such  a 
monstrous  hour,  almost  on  the  very  spot  where 
he  happened  now  to  be,  I  had  gone  down  to 
bring  him  in ;  choosing  then,  at  the  window, 
with  a  concentrated  need  of  not  alarming  the 
house,  rather  that  method  than  a  signal  more 
resonant.  I  had  left  her  meanwhile  in  little 
doubt  of  my  small  hope  of  representing  with 
success  even  to  her  actual  sympathy  my  sense 


110  THE  TURN"  OF  THE  SCREW 

of  the  real  splendour  of  the  little  inspiration 
with  which,  after  I  had  got  him  into  the  house, 
the  boy  met  my  final  articulate  challenge.  As 
soon  as  I  appeared  in  the  moonlight  on  the 
terrace,  he  had  come  to  me  as  straight  as  possi- 
ble ;  on  which  I  had  taken  his  hand  without  a 
word  and  led  him,  through  the  dark  spaces,  up 
the  staircase  where  Quint  had  so  hungrily  hov- 
ered for  him,  along  the  lobby  where  I  had 
listened  and  trembled,  and  so  to  his  forsaken 
room. 

Not  a  sound,  on  the  way,  had  passed  between 
us,  and  I  had  wondered  —  oh,  how  I  had  won- 
dered !  —  if  he  were  groping  about  in  his  little 
mind  for  something  plausible  and  not  too  gro- 
tesque. It  would  tax  his  invention,  certainly, 
and  I  felt,  this  time,  over  his  real  embarrass- 
ment, a  curious  thrill  of  triumph.  It  was  a 
sharp  trap  for  the  inscrutable !  He  couldn't 
play  any  longer  at  innocence  ;  so  how  the  deuce 
would  he  get  out  of  it?  There  beat  in  me  in- 
deed, with  the  passionate  throb  of  this  question, 
an  equal  dumb  appeal  as  to  how  the  deuce  / 
should.  I  was  confronted  at  last,  as  never  yet, 
with  all  the  risk  attached  even  now  to  sounding 
my  own  horrid  note.  I  remember  in  fact  that 
as  we  pushed  into  his  little  chamber,  where  the 


THE  TURN  OP  THE  SCREW  111 

bed  had  not  been  slept  in  at  all  and  the  window, 
uncovered  to  the  moonlight,  made  the  place  so 
clear  that  there  was  no  need  of  striking  a  match 
—  I  remember  how  I  suddenly  dropped,  sank 
upon  the  edge  of  the  bed  from  the  force  of  the 
idea  that  he  must  know  how  he  really,  as  they 
say,  "had"  me.  He  could  do  what  he  liked, 
with  all  his  cleverness  to  help  him,  so  long  as  I 
should  continue  to  defer  to  the  old  tradition  of 
the  criminality  of  those  caretakers  of  the  young 
who  minister  to  superstitions  and  fears.  He 
"  had  "  me  indeed,  and  in  a  cleft  stick ;  for  who 
would  ever  absolve  me,  who  would  consent  that 
I  should  go  unhung,  if,  by  the  faintest  tremor 
of  an  overture,  I  were  the  first  to  introduce 
into  our  perfect  intercourse  an  element  so  dire  ? 
No,  no :  it  was  useless  to  attempt  to  convey  to 
Mrs.  Grose,  just  as  it  is  scarcely  less  so  to 
attempt  to  suggest  here,  how,  in  our  short, 
stiff  brush  in  the  dark,  he  fairly  shook  me  with 
admiration.  I  was  of  course  thoroughly  kind 
and  merciful ;  never,  never  yet  had  I  placed  on 
his  little  shoulders  hands  of  such  tenderness 
as  those  with  which,  while  I  rested  against 
the  bed,  I  held  him  there  well  under  fire.  I  had 
no  alternative  but,  in  form  at  least,  to  put  it  to 
him. 


112  THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCREW 

"You  must  tell  me  now  —  and  all  the  truth. 
What  did  you  go  out  for?  What  were  you 
doing  there  ?  " 

I  can  still  see  his  wonderful  smile,  the  whites 
of  his  beautiful  eyes,  and  the  uncovering  of  his 
little  teeth  shine  to  me  in  the  dusk.  "  If  I  tell 
you  why,  will  you  understand  ? "  My  heart,  at 
this,  leaped  into  my  mouth.  Would  he  tell  me 
why?  I  found  no  sound  on  my  lips  to  press  it, 
and  I  was  aware  of  replying  only  with  a  vague, 
repeated,  grimacing  nod.  He  was  gentleness 
itself,  and  while  I  wagged  my  head  at  him  he 
stood  there  more  than  ever  a  little  fairy  prince. 
It  was  his  brightness  indeed  that  gave  me  a 
respite.  Would  it  be  so  great  if  he  were  really 
going  to  tell  me  ?  "  Well,"  he  said  at  last,  "  just 
exactly  in  order  that  you  should  do  this." 

"Do  what?" 

"Think  me  —  for  a  change  —  bad!"  I  shall 
never  forget  the  sweetness  and  gaiety  with 
which  he  brought  out  the  word,  nor  how,  on 
top  of  it,  he  bent  forward  and  kissed  me.  It 
was  practically  the  end  of  everything.  I  met 
his  kiss  and  I  had  to  make,  while  I  folded  him 
for  a  minute  in  my  arms,  the  most  stupendous 
effort  not  to  cry.  He  had  given  exactly  the 
account  of  himself  that  permitted  least  of  my 


THE  TURN   OF  THE   SCREW  113 

going  behind  it,  and  it  was  only  with  the  effect 
of  confirming  my  acceptance  of  it  that,  as  I 
presently  glanced  about  the  room,  I  could  say  — • 

"Then  you  didn't  undress  at  all?" 

He  fairly  glittered  in  the  gloom.  "Not  at 
all.  I  sat  up  and  read." 

"  And  when  did  you  go  down  ?  " 

"  At  midnight.     When  I'm  bad  I  am  bad  !  " 

"  I  see,  I  see  —  it's  charming.  But  how  could 
you  be  sure  I  would  know  it?" 

"Oh,  I  arranged  that  with  Flora."  His 
answers  rang  out  with  a  readiness  !  "  She  was 
to  get  up  and  look  out." 

"Which  is  what  she  did  do."  It  was  I  who 
fell  into  the  trap  ! 

"So  she  disturbed  you,  and,  to  see  what  she 
was  looking  at,  you  also  looked  —  you  saw." 

"While  you,"  I  concurred,  "caught  your 
death  in  the  night  air  !  " 

He  literally  bloomed  so  from  this  exploit  that 
he  could  afford  radiantly  to  assent.  "  How 
otherwise  should  I  have  been  bad  enough  ?  "  he 
asked.  Then,  after  another  embrace,  the  in- 
cident and  our  interview  closed  on  my  recogni- 
tion of  all  the  reserves  of  goodness  that,  for 
his  joke,  he  had  been  able  to  draw  upon. 


XII 

THE  particular  impression  I  had  received  proved 
in  the  morning  light,  I  repeat,  not  quite  success- 
fully presentable  to  Mrs.  Grose,  though  I  rein- 
forced it  with  the  mention  of  still  another  remark 
that  he  had  made  before  we  separated.  "  It  all 
lies  in  half-a-dozen  words,"  I  said  to  her,  "  words 
that  really  settle  the  matter.  '  Think,  you  know, 
what  I  might  do  ! '  He  threw  that  off  to  show 
me  how  good  he  is.  He  knows  down  to  the 
ground  what  he  '  might '  do.  That's  what  he 
gave  them  a  taste  of  at  school." 

"  Lord,  you  do  change  !  "  cried  my  friend. 

"I  don't  change  —  I  simply  make  it  out.  The 
four,  depend  upon  it,  perpetually  meet.  If  on 
either  of  these  last  nights  you  had  been  with 
either  child,  you  would  clearly  have  understood. 
The  more  I've  watched  and  waited  the  more  I've 
felt  that  if  there  were  nothing  else  to  make  it  sure 
it  would  be  made  so  by  the  systematic  silence 
of  each.  Never,  by  a  slip  of  the  tongue,  have 
114 


THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW  115 

they  so  much  as  alluded  to  either  of  their  old 
friends,  any  more  than  Miles  has  alluded  to  his 
expulsion.  Oh  yes,  we  may  sit  here  and  look  at 
them,  and  they  may  show  off  to  us  there  to  their 
fill ;  but  even  while  they  pretend  to  be  lost  in 
their  fairy-tale  they're  steeped  in  their  vision  of 
the  dead  restored.  He's  not  reading  to  her," 
I  declared;  "they're  talking  of  them — they're 
talking  horrors  !  I  go  on,  I  know,  as  if  I  were 
crazy ;  and  it's  a  wonder  I'm  not.  What  I've 
seen  would  have  made  you  so ;  but  it  has  only 
made  me  more  lucid,  made  me  get  hold  of  still 
other  things." 

My  lucidity  must  have  seemed  awful,  but  the 
charming  creatures  who  were  victims  of  it,  pass- 
ing and  repassing  in  their  interlocked  sweetness, 
gave  my  colleague  something  to  hold  on  by; 
and  I  felt  how  tight  she  held  as,  without  stirring 
in  the  breath  of  my  passion,  she  covered  them 
still  with  her  eyes.  "  Of  what  other  things  have 
you  got  hold?" 

"Why,  of  the  very  things  that  have  de- 
lighted, fascinated,  and  yet,  at  bottom,  as  I  now 
so  strangely  see,  mystified  and  troubled  me. 
Their  more  than  earthly  beauty,  their  absolutely 
unnatural  goodness.  It's  a  game,"  I  went  on; 
"  it's  a  policy  and  a  fraud !  " 


116  THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW 

"  On  the  part  of  little  darlings ?  " 

"As  yet  mere  lovely  babies?  Yes,  mad  as 
that  seems !  "  The  very  act  of  bringing  it  out 
really  helped  me  to  trace  it  —  follow  it  all  up 
and  piece  it  all  together.  "They  haven't  been 
good  —  they've  only  been  absent.  It  has  been 
easy  to  live  with  them,  because  they're  simply 
leading  a  life  of  their  own.  They're  not  mine 
—  they're  not  ours.  They're  his  and  they're 
hers ! " 

"  Quint's  and  that  woman's  ?  " 

"  Quint's  and  that  woman's.  They  want  to 
get  to  them." 

Oh,  how,  at  this,  poor  Mrs.  Grose  appeared  to 
study  them  !  "  But  for  what  ?  " 

"For  the  love  of  all  the  evil  that,  in  those 
dreadful  days,  the  pair  put  into  them.  And  to 
ply  them  with  that  evil  still,  to  keep  up  the  work 
of  demons,  is  what  brings  the  others  back." 

"  Laws !  "  said  my  friend  under  her  breath. 
The  exclamation  was  homely,  but  it  revealed  a 
real  acceptance  of  my  further  proof  of  what,  in 
the  bad  time  —  for  there  had  been  a  worse  even 
than  this! — must  have  occurred.  There  could 
have  been  no  such  justification  for  me  as  the 
plain  assent  of  her  experience  to  whatever  depth 
of  depravity  I  found  credible  in  our  brace  of 


THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW  117 

scoundrels.  It  was  in  obvious  submission  of 
memory  that  she  brought  out  after  a  moment: 
"  They  were  rascals  !  But  what  can  they  now 
do  ?  "  she  pursued. 

"  Do  ?  "  I  echoed  so  loud  that  Miles  and  Flora, 
as  they  passed  at  their  distance,  paused  an  in- 
stant in  their  walk  and  looked  at  us.  "Don't 
they  do  enough  ?  "  I  demanded  in  a  lower  tone, 
while  the  children,  having  smiled  and  nodded 
and  kissed  hands  to  us,  resumed  their  exhibi- 
tion. We  were  held  by  it  a  minute ;  then  I 
answered :  "  They  can  destroy  them  !  "  At  this 
my  companion  did  turn,  but  the  inquiry  she 
launched  was  a  silent  one,  the  effect  of  which 
was  to  make  me  more  explicit.  "  They  don't 
know,  as  yet,  quite  how — but  they're  trying 
hard.  They're  seen  only  across,  as  it  were,  and 
beyond  —  in  strange  places  and  on  high  places, 
the  top  of  towers,  the  roof  of  houses,  the  out- 
side of  windows,  the  further  edge  of  pools;  but 
there's  a  deep  design,  on  either  side,  to  shorten 
the  distance  and  overcome  the  obstacle ;  and  the 
success  of  the  tempters  is  only  a  question  of 
time.  They've  only  to  keep  to  their  sugges- 
tions of  danger." 

"For  the  children  to  come?" 

"  And  perish   in   the   attempt !  "     Mrs.    Grose 


118  THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW 

slowly  got  up,  and  I  scrupulously  added  :  "  Un- 
less, of  course,  we  can  prevent !  " 

Standing  there  before  me  while  I  kept  my 
seat,  she  visibly  turned  things  over.  "Their 
uncle  must  do  the  preventing.  He  must  take 
them  away." 

"  And  who's  to  make  him  ?  " 

She  had  been  scanning  the  distance,  but  she 
now  dropped  on  me  a  foolish  face.  "You, 
Miss." 

"  By  writing  to  him  that  his  house  is  poisoned 
and  his  little  nephew  and  niece  mad?" 

"  But  if  they  are,  Miss  ?  " 

"And  if  I  am  myself,  you  mean?  That's 
charming  news  to  be  sent  him  by  a  governess 
whose  prime  undertaking  was  to  give  him  no 
worry." 

Mrs.  Grose  considered,  following  the  children 
again.  "  Yes,  he  do  hate  worry.  That  was  the 
great  reason " 

"  Why  those  fiends  took  him  in  so  long  ?  No 
doubt,  though  his  indifference  must  have  been 
awful.  As  I'm  not  a  fiend,  at  any  rate,  I 
shouldn't  take  him  in." 

My  companion,  after  an  instant  and  for  all 
answer,  sat  down  again  and  grasped  my  arm. 
"Make  him  at  any  rate  come  to  you." 


THE  TUBN   OP  THE   SCREW  119 

I  stared.     "  To  me  ?  "     I  had  a  sudden  fear  of 
what  she  might  do.     " '  Him '  ?  " 

"He  ought  to  be  here  —  he  ought  to  help." 
I  quickly  rose,  and  I  think  I  must  have 
shown  her  a  queerer  face  than  ever  yet.  "  You 
see  me  asking  him  for  a  visit?"  No,  with  her 
eyes  on  my  face  she  evidently  couldn't.  Instead 
of  it  even  —  as  a  woman  reads  another  —  she 
could  see  what  I  myself  saw:  his  derision,  his 
amusement,  his  contempt  for  the  break-down  of 
my  resignation  at  being  left  alone  and  for  the 
fine  machinery  I  had  set  in  motion  to  attract  his 
attention  to  my  slighted  charms.  She  didn't 
know  —  no  one  knew — how  proud  I  had  been 
to  serve  him  and  to  stick  to  our  terms ;  yet 
she  none  the  less  took  the  measure,  I  think,  of 
the  warning  I  now  gave  her.  "If  you  should 
so  lose  your  head  as  to  appeal  to  him  for 

me " 

She  was  really  frightened.     "  Yes,  Miss  ?  " 
"I  would   leave,  on   the   spot,   both  him   and 
you." 


XIII 

IT  was  all  very  well  to  join  them,  but  speak- 
ing w>  them  proved  quite  as  much  as  ever  an 
effort  beyond  my  strength  —  offered,  in  close 
quarters,  difficulties  as  insurmountable  as  before. 
This  situation  continued  a  month,  and  with  new 
aggravations  and  particular  notes,  the  note  above 
all,  sharper  and  sharper,  of  the  small  ironic  con- 
sciousness on  the  part  of  my  pupils.  It  was 
not,  I  am  as  sure  today  as  I  was  sure  then, 
my  mere  infernal  imagination  :  it  was  absolutely 
traceable  that  they  were  aware  of  my  predica- 
ment and  that  this  strange  relation  made,  in 
a  manner,  for  a  long  time,  the  air  in  which 
we  moved.  I  don't  mean  that  they  had  their 
tongues  in  their  cheeks  or  did  anything  vulgar, 
for  that  was  not  one  of  their  dangers :  I  do 
mean,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  element  of 
the  unnamed  and  untouched  became,  between 
us,  greater  than  any  other,  and  that  so  much 
avoidance  could  not  have  been  so  successfully 

120 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW        121 

effected  without  a  great  deal  of  tacit  arrange- 
ment. It  was  as  if,  at  moments,  we  were  per- 
petually coming  into  sight  of  subjects  before 
which  we  must  stop  short,  turning  suddenly  out 
of  alleys  that  we  perceived  to  be  blind,  closing 
with  a  little  bang  that  made  us  look  at  each 
other  —  for,  like  all  bangs,  it  was  something 
louder  than  we  had  intended  —  the  doors  we 
had  indiscreetly  opened.  All  roads  lead  to 
Rome,  and  there  were  times  when  it  might  have 
struck  us  that  almost  every  branch  of  study  or 
subject  of  conversation  skirted  forbidden  ground. 
Forbidden  ground  was  the  question  of  the  re- 
turn of  the  dead  in  general  and  of  whatever,  in 
especial,  might  survive,  in  memory,  of  the  friends 
little  children  had  lost.  There  were  days  when 
I  could  have  sworn  that  one  of  them  had,  with 
a  small  invisible  nudge,  said  to  the  other  :  "  She 
thinks  she'll  do  it  this  time  —  but  she  won't!" 
To  "do  it"  would  have  been  to  indulge  for 
instance  —  and  for  once  in  a  way — in  some  direct 
reference  to  the  lady  who  had  prepared  them  for 
my  discipline.  They  had  a  delightful  endless 
appetite  for  passages  in  my  own  history,  to  which 
I  had  again  and  again  treated  them  ;  they  were 
in  possession  of  everything  that  had  ever  hap- 
pened to  me,  had  had,  with  every  circumstance 


122  THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCREW 

the  story  of  my  smallest  adventures  and  of  those 
of  my  brothers  and  sisters  and  of  the  cat  and  the 
dog  at  home,  as  well  as  many  particulars  of  the 
eccentric  nature  of  my  father,  of  the  furniture 
and  arrangement  of  our  house,  and  of  the  con- 
versation of  the  old  women  of  our  village.  There 
were  things  enough,  taking  one  with  another,  to 
chatter  about,  if  one  went  very  fast  and  knew  by 
instinct  when  to  go  round.  They  pulled  with 
an  art  of  their  own  the  strings  of  my  invention 
and  my  memory ;  and  nothing  else  perhaps,  when 
I  thought  of  such  occasions  afterwards,  gave  me 
so  the  suspicion  of  being  watched  from  under 
cover.  It  was  in  any  case  over  my  life,  my  past, 
and  my  friends  alone  that  we  could  take  any- 
thing like  our  ease  —  a  state  of  affairs  that  led 
them  sometimes  without  the  least  pertinence  to 
break  out  into  sociable  reminders.  I  was  invited 
—  with  no  visible  connection — to  repeat  afresh 
Goody  Gosling's  celebrated  mot  or  to  confirm  the 
details  already  supplied  as  to  the  cleverness  of 
the  vicarage  pony. 

It  was  partly  at  such  junctures  as  these  and 
partly  at  quite  different  ones  that,  with  the 
turn  my  matters  had  now  taken,  my  predica- 
ment, as  I  have  called  it,  grew  most  sensible. 
The  fact  that  the  days  passed  for  me  without 


THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  123 

another  encounter  ought,  it  would  have  ap- 
peared, to  have  done  something  toward  sooth- 
ing my  nerves.  Since  the  light  brush,  that 
second  night  on  the  upper  landing,  of  the  pres- 
ence of  a  woman  at  the  foot  of  the  stair,  I  had 
seen  nothing,  whether  in  or  out  of  the  house, 
that  one  had  better  not  have  seen.  There  was 
many  a  corner  round  which  I  expected  to  come 
upon  Quint,  and  many  a  situation  that,  in  a 
merely  sinister  way,  would  have  favoured  the 
appearance  of  Miss  Jessel.  The  summer  had 
turned,  the  summer  had  gone;  the  autumn  had 
dropped  upon  Ely  and  had  blown  out  half  our 
lights.  The  place,  with  its  grey  sky  and  withered 
garlands,  its  bared  spaces  and  scattered  dead 
leaves,  was  like  a  theatre  after  the  performance 
—  all  strewn  with  crumpled  playbills.  There 
were  exactly  states  of  the  air,  conditions  of  sound 
and  of  stillness,  unspeakable  impressions  of  the 
kind  of  ministering  moment,  that  brought  back 
to  me,  long  enough  to  catch  it,  the  feeling  of  the 
medium  in  which,  that  June  evening  out-of-doors, 
I  had  had  my  first  sight  of  Quint,  and  in  which, 
too,  at  those  other  instants,  I  had,  after  seeing 
him  through  the  window,  looked  for  him  in  vain 
in  the  circle  of  shrubbery.  I  recognised  the 
signs,  the  portents  —  I  recognised  the  moment, 


124  THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW 

the  spot.  But  they  remained  unaccompanied  and 
empty,  and  I  continued  unmolested  ;  if  unmo- 
lested one  could  call  a  young  woman  whose  sensi- 
bility had,  in  the  most  extraordinary  fashion,  not 
declined  but  deepened.  I  had  said  in  my  talk 
with  Mrs.  Grose  on  that  horrid  scene  of  Flora's 
by  the  lake  —  and  had  perplexed  her  by  so  say- 
ing—  that  it  would  from  that  moment  distress 
me  much  more  to  lose  my  power  than  to  keep  it. 
I  had  then  expressed  what  was  vividly  in  my 
mind  :  the  truth  that,  whether  the  children  really 
saw  or  not  —  since,  that  is,  it  was  'not  yet  defi- 
nitely proved — I  greatly  preferred,  as  a  safe- 
guard, the  fulness  of  my  own  exposure.  I  was 
ready  to  know  the  very  worst  that  was  to  be 
known.  What  I  had  then  had  an  ugly  glimpse 
of  was  that  my  eyes  might  be  sealed  just  while 
theirs  were  most  opened.  Well,  my  eyes  were 
sealed,  it  appeared,  at  present  —  a  consummation 
for  which  it  seemed  blasphemous  not  to  thank 
God.  There  was,  alas,  a  difficulty  about  that : 
I  would  have  thanked  him  with  all  my  soul  had 
I  not  had  in  a  proportionate  measure  this  con- 
viction of  the  secret  of  my  pupils. 

How  can  I  retrace  today  the  strange  steps  of 
my  obsession?  There  were  times  of  our  being 
together  when  I  would  have  been  ready  to  swear 


THE  TURN  OF  THE   SCREW  125 

that,  literally,  in  ray  presence,  but  with  my  direct 
sense  of  it  closed,  they  had  visitors  who  were 
known  and  were  welcome.  Then  it  was  that, 
had  I  not  been  deterred  by  the  very  chance  that 
such  an  injury  might  prove  greater  than  the 
injury  to  be  averted,  my  exultation  would  have 
broken  out.  "They're  here,  they're  here,  you 
little  wretches,"  I  would  have  cried,  "and  you 
can't  deny  it  now  !  "  The  little  wretches  denied 
it  with  all  the  added  volume  of  their  sociability 
and  their  tenderness,  in  just  the  crystal  depths 
of  which  —  like  the  flash  of  a  fish  in  a  stream  — 
the  mockery  of  their  advantage  peeped  up.  The 
shock,  in  truth,  had  sunk  into  me  still  deeper 
than  I  knew  on  the  night  when,  looking  out  to 
see  either  Quint  or  Miss  Jessel  under  the  stars, 
I  had^  beheld  the  boy  over  whose  rest  I  watched 
and  who  had  immediately  brought  in  with  him 
—  had  straightway,  there,  turned  it  on  me  —  the 
lovely  upward  look  with  which,  from  the  battle- 
ments above  me,  the  hideous  apparition  of  Quint 
had  played.  If  it  was  a  question  of  a  scare,  my 
discovery  on  this  occasion  had  scared  me  more 
than  any  other,  and  it  was  in  the  condition  of 
nerves  produced  by  it  that  I  made  my  actual 
inductions.  They  harassed  me  so  that  some- 
times, at  odd  moments,  I  shut  myself  up  audibly 


126  THE  TURN   OF  THE   SCKEW 

to  rehearse  —  it  was  at  once  a  fantastic  relief 
and  a  renewed  despair  —  the  manner  in  which  I 
might  come  to  the  point.  I  approached  it  from 
one  side  and  the  other  while,  in  my  room,  I  flung 
myself  about,  but  I  always  broke  down  in  the 
monstrous  utterance  of  names.  As  they  died 
away  on  my  lips,  I  said  to  myself  that  I  should 
indeed  help  them  to  represent  something  infa- 
mous if,  by  pronouncing  them,  I  should  violate 
as  rare  a  little  case  of  instinctive  delicacy  as  any 
schoolroom,  probably,  had  ever  known.  When 
I  said  to  myself :  "  They  have  the  manners  to  be 
silent,  and  you,  trusted  as  you  are,  the  baseness 
to  speak !  "  I  felt  myself  crimson  and  I  covered 
my  face  with  my  hands.  After  these  secret 
scenes  I  chattered  more  than  ever,  going  on 
volubly  enough  till  one  of  our  prodigious,  pal- 
pable hushes  occurred  —  I  can  call  them  nothing 
else  —  the  strange,  dizzy  lift  or  swim  (I  try 
for  terms !)  into  a  stillness,  a  pause  of  all  life, 
that  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  more  or  less 
noise  that  at  the  moment  we  might  be  engaged 
in  making  and  that  I  could  hear  through  any 
deepened  exhilaration  or  quickened  recitation 
or  louder  strum  of  the  piano.  Then  it  was  that 
the  others,  the  outsiders,  were  there.  Though 
they  were  not  angels,  they  "passed,"  as  the 


THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  127 

French  say,  causing  me,  while  they  stayed,  to 
tremble  with  the  fear  of  their  addressing  to 
their  younger  victims  some  yet  more  infernal 
message  or  more  vivid  image  than  they  had 
thought  good  enough  for  myself. 

What  it  was  most  impossible  to  get  rid  of  was 
the  cruel  idea  that,  whatever  I  had  seen,  Miles 
and  Flora  saw  more  —  things  terrible  and  un- 
guessable  and  that  sprang  from  dreadful  passages 
of  intercourse  in  the  past.  Such  things  naturally 
left  on  the  surface,  for  the  time,  a  chill  which 
we  vociferously  denied  that  we  felt ;  and  we 
had,  all  three,  with  repetition,  got  into  such 
splendid  training  that  we  went,  each  time,  almost 
automatically,  to  mark  the  close  of  the  incident, 
through  the  very  same  movements.  It  was  strik- 
ing of  the  children,  at  all  events,  to  kiss  me 
inveterately  with  a  kind  of  wild  irrelevance  and 
never  to  fail  —  one  or  the  other  —  of  the  precious 
question  that  had  helped  us  through  many  a 
peril.  "  When  do  you  think  he  will  come  ? 
Don't  you  think  we  ought  to  write  ? "  —  there 
was  nothing  like  that  inquiry,  we  found  by 
experience,  for  carrying  off  an  awkwardness. 
"  He  "  of  course  was  their  uncle  in  Harley  Street ; 
and  we  lived  in  much  profusion  of  theory  that 
he  might  at  any  moment  arrive  to  mingle  in 


128  THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW 

our  circle.  It  was  impossible  to  have  given 
less  encouragement  than  he  had  done  to  such 
a  doctrine,  but  if  we  had  not  had  the  doctrine 
to  fall  back  upon  we  should  have  deprived  each 
other  of  some  of  our  finest  exhibitions.  He 
never  wrote  to  them  —  that  may  have  been 
selfish,  but  it  was  a  part  of  the  flattery  of  his 
trust  of  me ;  for  the  way  in  which  a  man  pays 
his  highest  tribute  to  a  woman  is  apt  to  be  but 
by  the  more  festal  celebration  of  one  of  the  sacred 
laws  of  his  comfort ;  and  I  held  that  I  carried 
out  the  spirit  of  the  pledge  given  not  to  appeal 
to  him  when  I  let  my  charges  understand  that 
their  own  letters  were  but  charming  literary 
exercises.  They  were  too  beautiful  to  be  posted ; 
I  kept  them  myself;  I  have  them  all  to  this 
hour.  This  was  a  rule  indeed  which  only  added 
to  the  satiric  effect  of  my  being  plied  with  the 
supposition  that  he  might  at  any  moment  be 
among  us.  It  was  exactly  as  if  my  charges 
knew  how  almost  more  awkward  than  anything 
else  that  might  be  for  me.  There  appears  to 
me,  moreover,  as  I  look  back,  no  note  in  all 
this  more  extraordinary  than  the  mere  fact  that, 
in  spite  of  my  tension  and  of  their  triumph,  I 
never  lost  patience  with  them.  Adorable  they 
must  in  truth  have  been,  I  now  reflect,  that 


THE  TURN   OF  THE   SCREW  129 

I  didn't  in  these  days  hate  them  !  Would  ex- 
asperation, however,  if  relief  had  longer  been 
postponed,  finally  have  betrayed  me?  It  little 
matters,  for  relief  arrived.  I  call  it  relief,  though 
it  was  only  the  relief  that  a  snap  brings  to  a 
strain  or  the  burst  of  a  thunderstorm  to  a  day 
of  suffocation.  It  was  at  least  change,  and  it 
came  with  a  rush. 

K 


XIV 

WALKING  to  church  a  certain  Sunday  morning, 
I  had  little  Miles  at  my  side  and  his  sister,  in 
advance  of  us  and  at  Mrs.  Grose's,  well  in  sight. 
It  was  a  crisp,  clear  day,  the  first  of  its  order  for 
some  time ;  the  night  had  brought  a  touch  of 
frost,  and  the  autumn  air,  bright  and  sharp,  made 
the  church-bells  almost  gay.  It  was  an  odd 
accident  of  thought  that  I  should  have  happened 
at  such  a  moment  to  be  particularly  and  very 
gratefully  struck  with  the  obedience  of  my  little 
charges.  Why  did  they  never  resent  my  inexora- 
ble, my  perpetual  society?  Something  or  other 
had  brought  nearer  home  to  me  that  I  had  all 
but  pinned  the  boy  to  my  shawl  and  that,  in  the 
way  our  companions  were  marshalled  before  me, 
I  might  have  appeared  to  provide  against  some 
danger  of  rebellion.  I  was  like  a  gaoler  with  an 
eye  to  possible  surprises  and  escapes.  But  all 
this  belonged  —  I  mean  their  magnificent  little 
surrender  —  just  to  the  special  array  of  the  facts 
130 


THE  TUKN   OF  THE  SCREW  131 

that  were  most  abysmal.  Turned  out  for  Sunday 
by  his  uncle's  tailor,  who  had  had  a  free  hand  and 
a  notion  of  pretty  waistcoats  and  of  his  grand 
little  air,  Miles's  whole  title  to  independence,  the 
rights  of  his  sex  and  situation,  were  so  stamped 
upon  him  that  if  he  had  suddenly  struck  for 
freedom  I  should  have  had  nothing  to  say.  I 
was  by  the  strangest  of  chances  wondering  how 
I  should  meet  him  when  the  revolution  unmis- 
takeably  occurred.  I  call  it  a  revolution  because  I 
now  see  how,  with  the  word  he  spoke,  the  curtain 
rose  on  the  last  act  of  my  dreadful  drama  and  the 
catastrophe  was  precipitated.  "Look  here,  my 
dear,  you  know,"  he  charmingly  said,  "when  in 
the  world,  please,  am  I  going  back  to  school?" 

Transcribed  here  the  speech  sounds  harmless 
enough,  particularly  as  uttered  in  the  sweet,  high, 
casual  pipe  with  which,  at  all  interlocutors,  but 
above  all  at  his  eternal  governess,  he  threw  off 
intonations  as  if  he  were  tossing  roses.  There 
was  something  in  them  that  always  made  one 
"  catch,"  and  I  caught,  at  any  rate,  now  so 
effectually  that  I  stopped  as  short  as  if  one  of 
the  trees  of  the  park  had  fallen  across  the  road. 
There  was  something  new,  on  the  spot,  between 
us,  and  he  was  perfectly  aware  that  I  recognised 
it,  though,  to  enable  me  to  do  so,  he  had  no  need 


132  THE  TUKN   OF  THE   SCKEW 

to  look  a  whit  less  candid  and  charming  than 
usual.  I  could  feel  in  him  how  he  already,  from 
my  at  first  finding  nothing  to  reply,  perceived  the 
advantage  he  had  gained.  I  was  so  slow  to  find 
anything  that  he  had  plenty  of  time,  after  a 
minute,  to  continue  with  his  suggestive  but  in- 
conclusive smile  :  "  You  know,  my  dear,  that  for 

a  fellow  to  be  with  a  lady  always !  "  His 

"my  dear"  was  constantly  on  his  lips  for  me, 
and  nothing  could  have  expressed  more  the  exact 
shade  of  the  sentiment  with  which  I  desired  to 
inspire  my  pupils  than  its  fond  familiarity.  It 
was  so  respectfully  easy. 

But,  oh,  how  I  felt  that  at  present  I  must  pick 
my  own  phrases!  I  remember  that,  to  gain  time, 
I  tried  to  laugh,  and  I  seemed  to  see  in  the  beau- 
tiful face  with  which  he  watched  me  how  ugly 
and  queer  I  looked.  "And  always  with  the 
same  lady  ?  "  I  returned. 

He  neither  blenched  nor  winked.  The  whole 
thing  was  virtually  out  between  us.  "Ah,  of 
course,  she's  a  jolly,  '  perfect '  lady ;  but,  after 
all,  I'm  a  fellow,  don't  you  see?  that's  —  well, 
getting  on." 

I  lingered  there  with  him  an  instant  ever  so 
kindly.  "Yes,  you're  getting  on."  Oh,  but  I 
felt  helpless ! 


THE  TUKN  OF  THE  SCREW        133 

I  have  kept  to  this  day  the  heartbreaking  little 
idea  of  how  he  seemed  to  know  that  and  to  play 
with  it.  "  And  you  can't  say  I've  not  been  aw- 
fully good,  can  you?" 

I  laid  my  hand  on  his  shoulder,  for,  though  I 
felt  how  much  better  it  would  have  been  to  walk 
on,  I  was  not  yet  quite  able.  "  No,  I  can't  say 
that,  Miles." 

"  Except  just  that  one  night,  you  know !  " 

"  That  one  night  ?  "  I  couldn't  look  as  straight 
as  he. 

"  Why,  when  I  went  down  —  went  out  of  the 
house." 

"Oh,  yes.     But  I  forget  what  you  did  it  for." 

"You  forget?" — he  spoke  with  the  sweet  ex- 
travagance of  childish  reproach.  "  Why,  it  was 
to  show  you  I  could !  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  could." 

"And  I  can  again." 

I  felt  that  I  might,  perhaps,  after  all,  succeed 
in  keeping  my  wits  about  me.  "  Certainly.  But 
you  won't." 

"No,  not  that  again.     It  was  nothing." 

"  It  was  nothing,"  I  said.  "  But  we  must 
go  on." 

He  resumed  our  walk  with  me,  passing  his  hand 
into  my  arm.  "  Then  when  am  I  going  back  ?  " 


134  THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCREW 

I  wore,  in  turning  it  over,  my  most  responsible 
air.  "  Were  you  very  happy  at  school  ?  " 

He  just  considered.  "Oh,  I'm  happy  enough 
anywhere !  " 

"  Well,  then,"  I  quavered,  "  if  you're  just  as 
happy  here !  " 

"  Ah,  but  that  isn't  everything !  Of  course 
you  know  a  lot " 

"But  you  hint  that  you  know  almost  as 
much?"  I  risked  as  he  paused. 

"  Not  half  I  want  to !  "  Miles  honestly  pro- 
fessed. "But  it  isn't  so  much  that." 

"What  is  it,  then?" 

"Well  —  I  want  to  see  more  life." 

".I  see ;  I  see."  We  had  arrived  within  sight 
of  the  church  and  of  various  persons,  including 
several  of  the  household  of  Bly,  on  their  way  to 
it  and  clustered  about  the  door  to  see  us  go  in. 
I  quickened  our  step;  I  wanted  to  get  there 
before  the  question  between  us  opened  up  much 
further;  I  reflected  hungrily  that,  for  more 
than  an  hour,  he  would  have  to  be  silent;  and 
I  thought  with  envy  of  the  comparative  dusk  of 
the  pew  and  of  the  almost  spiritual  help  of  the 
hassock  on  which  I  might  bend  my  knees.  I 
seemed  literally  to  be  running  a  race  with  some 
confusion  to  which  he  was  about  to  reduce  me, 


THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCKEW  135 

but  I  felt  that  lie  had  got  in  first  when,  before  we 
had  even  entered  the  churchyard,  he  threw  out  — 

"  I  want  my  own  sort !  " 

It  literally  made  me  bound  forward.  "  There 
are  not  many  of  your  own  sort,  Miles ! "  I 
laughed.  "  Unless  perhaps  dear  little  Flora !  " 

"  You  really  compare  me  to  a  baby  girl  ?  " 

This  found  me  singularly  weak.  "  Don't  you, 
then,  love  our  sweet  Flora  ?  " 

"  If  I  didn't  —  and  you  too ;  if  I  didn't !  " 

he  repeated  as  if  retreating  for  a  jump,  yet  leav- 
ing his  thought  so  unfinished  that,  after  we  had 
come  into  the  gate,  another  stop,  which  he  im- 
posed on  me  by  the  pressure  of  his  arm,  had 
become  inevitable.  Mrs.  Grose  and  Flora  had 
passed  into  the  church,  the  other  worshippers 
had  followed,  and  we  were,  for  the  minute,  alone 
among  the  old,  thick  graves.  We  had  paused,  on 
the  path  from  the  gate,  by  a  low,  oblong,  table- 
like tomb. 

"  Yes,  if  you  didn't ?  " 

He  looked,  while  I  waited,  about  at  the  graves. 
"  Well,  you  know  what !  "  But  he  didn't  move, 
and  he  presently  produced  something  that  made 
me  drop  straight  down  on  the  stone  slab,  as  if 
suddenly  to  rest.  "  Does  my  uncle  think  what 
you  think  ?  " 


136  THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW 

I  markedly  rested.  "  How  do  you  know  what 
I  think?" 

"  Ah,  well,  of  course  I  don't ;  for  it  strikes  me 
you  never  tell  me.  But  I  mean  does  he  know?  " 

"  Know  what,  Miles  ?" 

"Why,  the  way  I'm  going  on." 

I  perceived  quickly  enough  that  I  could  make, 
to  this  inquiry,  no  answer  that  would  not  involve 
something  of  a  sacrifice  of  my  employer.  Yet  it 
appeared  to  me  that  we  were  all,  at  Ely,  suf- 
ficiently sacrificed  to  make  that  venial.  "  I  don't 
think  your  uncle  much  cares." 

Miles,  on  this,  stood  looking  at  me.  "Then 
don't  you  think  he  can  be  made  to?" 

"In  what  way?" 

"Why,  by  his  coming  down." 

"  But  who'll  get  him  to  come  down  ?  " 

"  I  will ! "  the  boy  said  with  extraordinary 
brightness  and  emphasis.  He  gave  me  another 
look  charged  with  that  expression  and  then 
marched  off  alone  into  church. 


XV 


THE  business  was  practically  settled  from  the 
moment  I  never  followed  him.  It  was  a  pitiful 
surrender  to  agitation,  but  my  being  aware  of  this 
had  somehow  no  power  to  restore  me.  I  only  sat 
there  on  my  tomb  and  read  into  what  my  little 
friend  had  said  to  me  the  fulness  of  its  meaning ; 
by  the  time  I  had  grasped  the  whole  of  which  I 
had  also  embraced,  for  absence,  the  pretext  that  I 
was  ashamed  to  offer  my  pupils  and  the  rest  of 
the  congregation  such  an  example  of  delay.  What 
I  said  to  myself  above  all  was  that  Miles  had  got 
something  out  of  me  and  that  the  proof  of  it,  for 
him,  would  be  just  this  awkward  collapse.  He 
had  got  out  of  me  that  there  was  something  I  was 
much  afraid  of  and  that  he  should  probably  be 
able  to  make  use  of  my  fear  to  gain,  for  his  own 
purpose,  more  freedom.  My  fear  was  of  having 
to  deal  with  the  intolerable  question  of  the 
grounds  of  his  dismissal  from  school,  for  that  was 
really  but  the  question  of  the  horrors  gathered 
137 


138  THE   TUKN   OF    THE   SCREW 

behind.  That  his  uncle  should  arrive  to  treat 
with  me  of  these  things  was  a  solution  that, 
strictly  speaking,  I  ought  now  to  have  desired  to 
bring  on ;  but  I  could  so  little  face  the  ugliness 
and  the  pain  of  it  that  I  simply  procrastinated 
and  lived  from  hand  to  mouth.  The  boy,  to  my 
deep  discomposure,  was  immensely  in  the  right, 
was  in  a  position  to  say  to  me  :  "  Either  you  clear 
up  with  my  guardian  the  mystery  of  this  inter- 
ruption of  my  studies,  or  you  cease  to  expect  me 
to  lead  with  you  a  life  that's  so  unnatural  for  a 
boy."  What  was  so  unnatural  for  the  particular 
boy  I  was  concerned  with  was  this  sudden  revela- 
tion of  a  consciousness  and  a  plan. 

That  was  what  really  overcame  me,  what  pre- 
vented my  going  in.  I  walked  round  the  church, 
hesitating,  hovering ;  I  reflected  that  I  had  al- 
ready, with  him,  hurt  myself  beyond  repair. 
Therefore  I  could  patch  up  nothing,  and  it  was 
too  extreme  an  effort  to  squeeze  beside  him  into 
the  pew :  he  would  be  so  much  more  sure  than 
ever  to  pass  his  arm  into  mine  and  make  me  sit 
there  for  an  hour  in  close,  silent  contact  with  his 
commentary  on  our  talk.  For  the  first  minute 
since  his  arrival  I  wanted  to  get  away  from  him. 
As  I  paused  beneath  the  high  east  window  and 
listened  to  the  sounds  of  worship,  I  was  taken 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW  139 

with  an  impulse  that  might  master  me,  I  felt, 
completely  should  I  give  it  the  least  encourage- 
ment. I  might  easily  put  an  end  to  my  predica- 
ment by  getting  away  altogether.  Here  was  my 
chance ;  there  was  no  one  to  stop  me ;  I  could 
give  the  whole  thing  up  —  turn  my  back  and 
retreat.  It  was  only  a  question  of  hurrying 
again,  for  a  few  preparations,  to  the  house  which 
the  attendance  at  church  of  so  many  of  the  ser- 
vants would  practically  have  left  unoccupied. 
No  one,  in  short,  could  blame  me  if  I  should  just 
drive  desperately  off.  What  was  it  to  get  away 
if  I  got  away  only  till  dinner  ?  That  would  be  in 
a  couple  of  hours,  at  the  end  of  which  —  I  had  the 
acute  prevision  —  my  little  pupils  would  play  at 
innocent  wonder  about  my  non-appearance  in 
their  train. 

"  What  did  you  do,  you  naughty,  bad  thing  ? 
Why  in  the  world,  to  worry  us  so  —  and  take  our 
thoughts  off  too,  don't  you  know  ?  —  did  you 
desert  us  at  the  very  door  ?  "  I  couldn't  meet 
such  questions  nor,  as  they  asked  them,  their 
false  little  lovely  eyes  ;  yet  it  was  all  so  exactly 
what  I  should  have  to  meet  that,  as  the  prospect 
grew  sharp  to  me,  I  at  last  let  myself  go. 

I  got,  so  far  as  the  immediate  moment  was 
concerned,  away ;  I  came  straight  out  of  the 


140  THE  TURN  OF  THE   SCKEW 

churchyard  and,  thinking  hard,  retraced  my  steps 
through  the  park.  It  seemed  to  me  that  by  the 
time  I  reached  the  house  I  had  made  up  my  mind 
I  would  fly.  The  Sunday  stillness  both  of  the 
approaches  and  of  the  interior,  in  which  I  met  no 
one,  fairly  excited  me  with  a  sense  of  opportunity. 
Were  I  to  get  off  quickly,  this  way,  I  should  get 
off  without  a  scene,  without  a  word.  My  quick- 
ness would  have  to  be  remarkable,  however,  and 
the  question  of  a  conveyance  was  the  great  one  to 
settle.  Tormented,  in  the  hall,  with  difficulties 
and  obstacles,  I  remember  sinking  down  at  the 
foot  of  the  staircase — suddenly  collapsing  there 
on  the  lowest  step  and  then,  with  a  revulsion, 
recalling  that  it  was  exactly  where  more  than  a 
month  before,  in  the  darkness  of  night  and  just 
so  bowed  with  evil  things,  I  had  seen  the  spectre 
of  the  most  horrible  of  women.  At  this  I  was 
able  to  straighten  myself  ;  I  went  the  rest  of  the 
way  up  ;  I  made,  in  my  bewilderment,  for  the 
schoolroom,  where  there  were  objects  belonging 
to  me  that  I  should  have  to  take.  But  I  opened 
the  door  to  find  again,  in  a  flash,  my  eyes  un- 
sealed. In  the  presence  of  what  I  saw  I  reeled 
straight  back  upon  my  resistance. 

Seated  at  my  own  table  in  clear  noonday  light 
I  saw  a  person  whom,  without  my  previous  expe- 


THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW  141 

rience,  I  should  have  taken  at  the  first  blush 
for  some  housemaid  who  might  have  stayed  at 
home  to  look  after  the  place  and  who,  availing 
herself  of  rare  relief  from  observation  and  of  the 
schoolroom  table  and  my  pens,  ink,  and  paper,  had 
applied  herself  to  the  considerable  effort  of  a  letter 
to  her  sweetheart.  There  was  an  effort  in  the 
way  that,  while  her  arms  rested  on  the  table,  her 
hands  with  evident  weariness  supported  her 
head ;  but  at  the  moment  I  took  this  in  I  had 
already  become  aware  that,  in  spite  of  my  en- 
trance, her  attitude  strangely  persisted.  Then  it 
was  —  with  the  very  act  of  its  announcing  itself 
—  that  her  identity  flared  up  in  a  change  of 
posture.  She  rose,  not  as  if  she  had  heard  me, 
but  with  an  indescribable  grand  melancholy  of 
indifference  and  detachment,  and,  within  a  dozen 
feet  of  me,  stood  there  as  my  vile  predecessor. 
Dishonoured  and  tragic,  she  was  all  before  me  ; 
but  even  as  I  fixed  and,  for  memory,  secured  it, 
the  awful  image  passed  away.  Dark  as  midnight 
in  her  black  dress,  her  haggard  beauty  and  her 
unutterable  woe,  she  had  looked  at  me  long 
enough  to  appear  to  say  that  her  right  to  sit  at 
my  table  was  as  good  as  mine  to  sit  at  hers. 
While  these  instants  lasted  indeed  I  had  the 
extraordinary  chill  of  a  feeling  that  it  was  I  who 


142  THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW 

was  the  intruder.  It  was  as  a  wild  protest 
against  it  that,  actually  addressing  her — "You 
terrible,  miserable  woman !  "  —  I  heard  myself 
break  into  a  sound  that,  by  the  open  door,  rang 
through  the  long  passage  and  the  empty  house. 
She  looked  at  me  as  if  she  heard  me,  but  I  had 
recovered  myself  and  cleared  the  air.  There  was 
nothing  in  the  room  the  next  minute  but  the 
sunshine  and  a  sense  that  I  must  stay. 


XVI 

I  HAD  so  perfectly  expected  that  the  return 
of  my  pupils  would  be  marked  by  a  demonstra- 
tion that  I  was  freshly  upset  at  having  to  take 
into  account  that  they  were  dumb  about  my 
absence.  Instead  of  gaily  denouncing  and  caress- 
ing me,  they  made  no  allusion  to  my  having 
failed  them,  and  I  was  left,  for  the  time,  on 
perceiving  that  she  too  said  nothing,  to  study 
Mrs.  Grose's  odd  face.  I  did  this  to  such  pur- 
pose that  I  made  sure  they  had  in  some  way 
bribed  her  to  silence  ;  a  silence  that,  however, 
I  would  engage  to  break  down  on  the  first 
private  opportunity.  This  opportunity  came 
before  tea  :  I  secured  five  minutes  with  her  in 
the  housekeeper's  room,  where,  in  the  twilight, 
amid  a  smell  of  lately-baked  bread,  but  with 
the  place  all  swept  and  garnished,  I  found  her 
sitting  in  pained  placidity  before  the  fire.  So 
I  see  her  still,  so  I  see  her  best :  facing  the 
flame  from  her  straight  chair  in  the  dusky, 
143 


144  THE   TUKN   OF    THE   SCREW 

shining  room,  a  large  clean  image  of  the  "put 
away"  —  of  drawers  closed  and  locked  and  rest 
without  a  remedy. 

"  Oh,  yes,  they  asked  me  to  say  nothing ;  and 
to  please  them  —  so  long  as  they  were  there  — 
of  course  I  promised.  But  what  had  happened 
to  you?" 

"  I  only  went  with  you  for  the  walk,"  I  said. 
"I  had  then  to  come  back  to  meet  a  friend." 

She  showed  her  surprise.     "  A  friend  —  you  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  have  a  couple  !  "  I  laughed.  "  But 
did  the  children  give  you  a  reason  ?  " 

"  For  not  alluding  to  your  leaving  us  ?  Yes  ; 
they  said  you  would  like  it  better.  Do  you 
like  it  better?" 

My  face  had  made  her  rueful.  "No,  I  like 
it  worse  !  "  But  after  an  instant  I  added  :  "  Did 
they  say  why  I  should  like  it  better?" 

"  No  ;  Master  Miles  only  said,  '  We  must  do 
nothing  but  what  she  likes  !  " 

"  I  wish  indeed  he  would !  And  what  did 
Flora  say?" 

"  Miss  Flora  was  too  sweet.  She  said,  '  Oh, 
of  course,  of  course!'  —  and  I  said  the  same." 

I  thought  a  moment.  "  You  were  too  sweet 
too  —  I  can  hear  you  all.  But  none  the  less, 
between  Miles  and  me,  it's  now  all  out." 


THE  TURN   OF  THE   SCREW  145 

"  All  out  ?  "  My  companion  stared.  "  But 
what,  Miss?" 

"Everything.  It  doesn't  matter.  I've  made 
up  my  mind.  I  came  home,  my  dear,"  I  went 
on,  "for  a  talk  with  Miss  Jessel." 

I  had  by  this  time  formed  the  habit  of  having 
Mrs.  Grose  literally  well  in  hand  in  advance  of 
my  sounding  that  note ;  so  that  even  now,  as 
she  bravely  blinked  under  the  signal  of  my 
word,  I  could  keep  her  comparatively  firm.  "A 
talk  !  Do  you  mean  she  spoke  ?  " 

"  It  came  to  that.  I  found  her,  on  my  return, 
in  the  schoolroom." 

"And  what  did  she  say?"  I  can  hear  the 
good  woman  still,  and  the  candour  of  her 
stupefaction. 

"That  she  suffers  the  torments !" 

It  was  this,  of  a  truth,  that  made  her,  as  she 
filled  out  my  picture,  gape.  "Do  you  mean," 
she  faltered,  "  —  of  the  lost?" 

"Of  the  lost.  Of  the  damned.  And  that's 

why,  to  share  them "  I  faltered  myself 

with  the  horror  of  it. 

But  my  companion,  with  less  imagination,  kept 
me  up.  "To  share  them ?" 

"She  wants  Flora."  Mrs.  Grose  might,  as  I 
gave  it  to  her,  fairly  have  fallen  away  from  me 


146  THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCKEW 

had  I  not  been  prepared.  I  still  held  her  there, 
to  show  I  was.  "As  I've  told  you,  however,  it 
doesn't  matter." 

"Because  you've  made  up  your  mind?  But 
to  what?" 

"To  everything." 

"  And  what  do  you  call  '  everything '  ?  " 

"Why,  sending  for  their  uncle." 

"Oh,  Miss,  in  pity  do,"  my  friend  broke  out. 

"Ah,  but  I  will,  I  will!  I  see  it's  the  only 
way.  What's  'out,'  as  I  told  you,  with  Miles 
is  that  if  he  thinks  I'm  afraid  to  —  and  has 
ideas  of  what  he  gains  by  that  —  he  shall  see 
he's  mistaken.  Yes,  yes  ;  his  uncle  shall  have 
it  here  from  me  on  the  spot  (and  before  the 
boy  himself  if  necessary)  that  if  I'm  to  be 
reproached  with  having  done  nothing  again 
about  more  school " 

"  Yes,  Miss "  my  companion  pressed  me. 

"  Well,  there's  that  awful  reason." 

There  were  now  clearly  so  many  of  these  for 
my  poor  colleague  that  she  was  excusable  for 
being  vague.  "  But  —  a  —  which  ?  " 

"Why,  the  letter  from  his  old  place." 

"  You'll  show  it  to  the  master  ?  " 

"I  ought  to  have  done  so  on  the  instant." 

"  Oh,  no  !  "  said  Mrs.  Grose  with  decision. 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW        147 

"  I'll  put  it  before  him,"  I  went  on  inexo- 
rably, "that  I  can't  undertake  to  work  the 
question  on  behalf  of  a  child  who  has  been 
expelled 

"  For  we've  never  in  the  least  known  what ! " 
Mrs.  Grose  declared. 

"For  wickedness.  For  what  else  —  when 
he's  so  clever  and  beautiful  and  perfect?  Is 
he  stupid?  Is  he  untidy?  Is  he  infirm?  Is 
he  ill-natured?  He's  exquisite  —  so  it  can  be 
only  that;  and  that  would  open  up  the  whole 
thing.  After  all,"  I  said,  "  it's  their  uncle's 
fault.  If  he  left  here  such  people !  " 

"  He  didn't  really  in  the  least  know  them. 
The  fault's  mine."  She  had  turned  quite 
pale. 

"Well,  you  shan't  suffer,"  I  answered. 

"  The  children  shan't !  "  she  emphatically  re- 
turned. 

I  was  silent  awhile  ;  we  looked  at  each  other. 
"  Then  what  am  I  to  tell  him  ?  " 

"You  needn't  tell  him  anything.  Til  tell 
him." 

I  measured  this.  "Do  you  mean  you'll 

write ? "  Remembering  she  couldn't,  I 

caught  myself  up.  "  How  do  you  communi- 
cate ?  " 


148  THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW 

"I  tell  the  bailiff.     He  writes." 

"And  should  you  like  him  to  write  our 
story  ?  " 

My  question  had  a  sarcastic  force  that  I  had 
not  fully  intended,  and  it  made  her,  after  a 
moment,  inconsequently  break  down.  The  tears 
were  again  in  her  eyes.  "  Ah,  Miss,  you 
write  !  " 

"Well  —  tonight,"  I  at  last  answered;  and 
on  this  we  separated. 


XVII 

I  WENT  so  far,  in  the  evening,  as  to  make  a 
beginning.  The  weather  had  changed  back,  a 
great  wind  was  abroad,  and  beneath  the  lamp, 
in  my  room,  with  Flora  at  peace  beside  me,  I 
sat  for  a  long  time  before  a  blank  sheet  of  paper 
and  listened  to  the  lash  of  the  rain  and  the  batter 
of  the  gusts.  Finally  I  went  out,  taking  a  can- 
dle ;  I  crossed  the  passage  and  listened  a  minute 
at  Miles's  door.  What,  under  my  endless  ob- 
session, I  had  been  impelled  to  listen  for  was 
some  betrayal  of  his  not  being  at  rest,  and  I 
presently  caught  one,  but  not  in  the  form  I  had 
expected.  His  voice  tinkled  out.  "  I  say,  you 
there  —  come  in."  It  was  a  gaiety  in  the  gloom  ! 

I  went  in  with  my  light  and  found  him,  in  bed, 
very  wide  awake,  but  very  much  at  his  ease. 
"  Well,  what  are  you  up  to  ?  "  he  asked  with  a 
grace  of  sociability  in  which  it  occurred  to  me 
that  Mrs.  Grose,  had  she  been  present,  might 
have  looked  in  vain  for  proof  that  anything  was 
"  out." 

149 


150  THE   TURN    OF   THE   SCREW 

I  stood  over  him  with  my  candle.  "  How  did 
you  know  I  was  there  ?  " 

"  Why,  of  course  I  heard  you.  Did  you  fancy 
you  made  no  noise  ?  You're  like  a  troop  of  cav- 
alry !  "  he  beautifully  laughed. 

"  Then  you  weren't  asleep  ?  " 

" Not  much  !     I  lie  awake  and  think." 

I  had  put  my  candle,  designedly,  a  short  way 
off,  and  then,  as  he  held  out  his  friendly  old  hand 
to  me,  had  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  his  bed. 
"  What  is  it,"  I  asked,  "that  you  think  of  ?  " 

"  What  in  the  world,  my  dear,  but  you?  " 

"  Ah,  the  pride  I  take  in  your  appreciation 
doesn't  insist  on  that !  I  had  so  far  rather  you 
slept." 

"  Well,  I  think  also,  you  know,  of  this  queer 
business  of  ours." 

I  marked  the  coolness  of  his  firm  little  hand. 
"  Of  what  queer  business,  Miles  ?  " 

"  Why,  the  way  you  bring  me  up.  And  all 
the  rest !  " 

I  fairly  held  my  breath  a  minute,  and  even  from 
my  glimmering  taper  there  was  light  enough  to 
show  how  he  smiled  up  at  me  from  his  pillow. 
"  What  do  you  mean  by  all  the  rest  ?  " 

"  Oh,  you  know,  you  know  !  " 

I  could  say  nothing   for  a   minute,   though   I 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW        151 

felt,  as  I  held  his  hand  and  our  eyes  continued 
to  meet,  that  my  silence  had  all  the  air  of  ad- 
mitting his  charge  and  that  nothing  in  the  whole 
world  of  reality  was  perhaps  at  that  moment  so 
fabulous  as  our  actual  relation.  "  Certainly  you 
shall  go  back  to  school,"  I  said,  "if  it  be  that 
that  troubles  you.  But  not  to  the  old  place  — 
we  must  find  another,  a  better.  How  could 
I  know  it  did  trouble  you,  this  question,  when 
you  never  told  me  so,  never  spoke  of  it  at  all  ?  " 
His  clear,  listening  face,  framed  in  its  smooth 
whiteness,  made  him  for  the  minute  as  appealing 
as  some  wistful  patient  in  a  children's  hospital; 
and  I  would  have  given,  as  the  resemblance  came 
to  me,  all  I  possessed  on  earth  really  to  be  the 
nurse  or  the  sister  of  charity  who  might  have 
helped  to  cure  him.  Well,  even  as  it  was,  I  per- 
haps might  help  !  "  Do  you  know  you've  never 
said  a  word  to  me  about  your  school  —  I  mean 
the  old  one ;  never  mentioned  it  in  any  way  ? " 

He  seemed  to  wonder ;  he  smiled  with  the 
same  loveliness.  But  he  clearly  gained  time  ;  he 
waited,  he  called  for  guidance.  "  Haven't  I  ?  " 
It  wasn't  for  me  to  help  him  —  it  was  for  the 
thing  I  had  met  ! 

Something  in  his  tone  and  the  expression  of  his 
face,  as  I  got  this  from  him,  set  my  heart  aching 


152  THE  TURN   OP  THE  SCREW 

with  such  a  pang  as  it  had  never  yet  known  ;  so 
unutterably  touching  was  it  to  see  his  little 
brain  puzzled  and  his  little  resources  taxed  to 
play,  under  the  spell  laid  on  him,  a  part  of  inno- 
cence and  consistency.  "No,  never  —  from  the 
hour  you  came  back.  You've  never  mentioned 
to  me  one  of  your  masters,  one  of  your  comrades, 
nor  the  least  little  thing  that  ever  happened  to 
you  at  school.  Never,  little  Miles  —  no,  never  — 
have  you  given  me  an  inkling  of  anything  that 
may  have  happened  there.  Therefore  you  can 
fancy  how  much  I'm  in  the  dark.  Until  you 
came  out,  that  way,  this  morning,  you  had,  since 
the  first  hour  I  saw  you,  scarce  even  made  a  ref- 
erence to  anything  in  your  previous  life.  You 
seemed  so  perfectly  to  accept  the  present."  It 
was  extraordinary  how  my  absolute  conviction  of 
his  secret  precocity  (or  whatever  I  might  call  the 
poison  of  an  influence  that  I  dared  but  half  to 
phrase)  made  him,  in  spite  of  the  faint  breath  of 
his  inward  trouble,  appear  as  accessible  as  an 
older  person  —  imposed  him  almost  as  an  intellect- 
ual equal.  "  I  thought  you  wanted  to  go  on  as 
you  are." 

It  struck  me  that  at  this  he  just  faintly  coloured. 
He  gave,  at  any  rate,  like  a  convalescent  slightly 
fatigued,  a  languid  shake  of  his  head.  "  I  don't 
—  I  don't.  I  want  to  get  away." 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW        153 

"  You're  tired  of  Ely  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no,  I  like  Ely." 

"Well,  then ?" 

"  Oh,  you  know  what  a  boy  wants  !  " 

I  felt  that  I  didn't  know  so  well  as  Miles,  and 
I  took  temporary  refuge.  "  You  want  to  go  to 
your  uncle  ?  " 

Again,  at  this,  with  his  sweet  ironic  face,  he 
made  a  movement  on  the  pillow.  "  Ah,  you  can't 
get  off  with  that !  " 

I  was  silent  a  little,  and  it  was  I,  now,  I  think, 
who  changed  colour.  "  My  dear,  I  don't  want  to 
get  off  I " 

"  You  can't,  even  if  you  do.  You  can't,  you 
can't !  "  —  he  lay  beautifully  staring.  "  My  un- 
cle must  come  down,  and  you  must  completely 
settle  things." 

"  If  we  do,"  I  returned  with  some  spirit,  "  you 
may  be  sure  it  will  be  to  take  you  quite  away." 

"  Well,  don't  you  understand  that  that's  exactly 
what  I'm  working  for  ?  You'll  have  to  tell  him 
—  about  the  way  you've  let  it  all  drop  :  you'll 
have  to  tell  him  a  tremendous  lot !  " 

The  exultation  with  which  he  uttered  this 
helped  me  somehow,  for  the  instant,  to  meet  him 
rather  more.  "And  how  much  will  you.  Miles, 
have  to  tell  him?  There  are  things  he'll  ask 
you ! " 


154  THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCREW 

He  turned  it  over.  "  Very  likely.  But  what 
things?" 

"  The  things  you've  never  told  me.  To  make 
up  his  mind  what  to  do  with  you.  He  can't 
send  you  back " 

"  Oh,  I  don't  want  to  go  back !  "  he  broke  in. 
"I  want  a  new  field." 

He  said  it  with  admirable  serenity,  with  posi- 
tive unimpeachable  gaiety ;  and  doubtless  it  was 
that  very  note  that  most  evoked  for  me  the 
poignancy,  the  unnatural  childish  tragedy,  of 
his  probable  reappearance  at  the  end  of  three 
months  with  all  this  bravado  and  still  more  dis- 
honour. It  overwhelmed  me  now  that  I  should 
never  be  able  to  bear  that,  and  it  made  me  let 
myself  go.  I  threw  myself  upon  him  and  in 
the  tenderness  of  my  pity  I  embraced  him. 
"Dear  little  Miles,  dear  little  Miles !" 

My  face  was  close  to  his,  and  he  let  me  kiss 
him,  simply  taking  it  with  indulgent  good- 
humour.  "Well,  old  lady?" 

"Is  there  nothing  —  nothing  at  all  that  you 
want  to  tell  me  ?  " 

He  turned  off  a  little,  facing  round  toward 
the  wall  and  holding  up  his  hand  to  look  at  as 
one  had  seen  sick  children  look.  "  I've  told 
you  —  I  told  you  this  morning." 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW        15& 

Oh,  I  was  sorry  for  him  !  "  That  you  just 
want  me  not  to  worry  you  ?  " 

He  looked  round  at  me  now,  as  if  in  recog- 
nition of  my  understanding  him ;  then  ever  so 
gently,  "To  let  me  alone,"  he  replied. 

There  was  even  a  singular  little  dignity  in  it, 
something  that  made  me  release  him,  yet,  when 
I  had  slowly  risen,  linger  beside  him.  God 
knows  I  never  wished  to  harass  him,  but  I  felt 
that  merely,  at  this,  to  turn  my  back  on  him 
was  to  abandon  or,  to  put  it  more  truly,  to  lose 
him.  "I've  just  begun  a  letter  to  your  uncle," 
I  said. 

"  Well,  then,  finish  it !  " 

I  waited  a  minute.     "  What  happened  before  ?  " 

He  gazed  up  at  me  again.     "  Before  what?  " 

"Before  you  came  back.  And  before  you 
went  away." 

For  some  time  he  was  silent,  but  he  continued 
to  meet  my  eyes.  "What  happened?" 

It  made  me,  the  sound  of  the  words,  in  which 
it  seemed  to  me  that  I  caught  for  the  very  first 
time  a  small  faint  quaver  of  consenting  con- 
sciousness—  it  made  me  drop  on  my  knees  be- 
side the  bed  and  seize  once  more  the  chance 
of  possessing  him.  "Dear  little  Miles,  dear  lit- 
tle Miles,  if  you  knew  how  I  want  to  help  you ! 


156  THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW 

It's  only  that,  it's  nothing  but  that,  and  I'd 
rather  die  than  give  you  a  pain  or  do  you  a 
wrong  —  I'd  rather  die  than  hurt  a  hair  of  you. 
Dear  little  Miles"  —  oh,  I  brought  it  out  now 
even  if  I  should  go  too  far  —  "I  just  want  you 
to  help  me  to  save  you  ! "  But  I  knew  in  a 
moment  after  this  that  I  had  gone  too  far. 
The  answer  to  my  appeal  was  instantaneous, 
but  it  came  in  the  form  of  an  extraordinary 
blast  and  chill,  a  gust  of  frozen  air  and  a  shake 
of  the  room  as  great  as  if,  in  the  wild  wind, 
the  casement  had  crashed  in.  The  boy  gave  a 
loud,  high  shriek,  which,  lost  in  the  rest  of  the 
shock  of  sound,  might  have  seemed,  indistinctly, 
though  I  was  so  close  to  him,  a  note  either  of 
jubilation  or  of  terror.  I  jumped  to  my  feet 
again  and  was  conscious  of  darkness.  So  for 
a  moment  we  remained,  while  I  stared  about 
me  and  saw  that  the  drawn  curtains  were  un- 
stirred and  the  window  tight.  "Why,  the  can- 
dle's out !  "  I  then  cried. 

"  It  was  I  who  blew  it,  dear  !  "  said  Miles. 


XVIII 

THE  next  day,  after  lessons,  Mrs.  Grose  found 
a  moment  to  say  to  me  quietly  :  "  Have  you  writ- 
ten, Miss?" 

"  Yes  —  I've  written."  But  I  didn't  add  —  for 
the  hour  —  that  my  letter,  sealed  and  directed, 
was  still  in  my  pocket.  There  would  be  time 
enough  to  send  it  before  the  messenger  should  go 
to  the  village.  Meanwhile  there  had  been,  on  the 
part  of  my  pupils,  no  more  brilliant,  more  ex- 
emplary morning.  It  was  exactly  as  if  they  had 
both  had  at  heart  to  gloss  over  any  recent  little 
friction.  They  performed  the  dizziest  feats  of 
arithmetic,  soaring  quite  out  of  my  feeble  range, 
and  perpetrated,  in  higher  spirits  than  ever,  geo- 
graphical and  historical  jokes.  It  was  conspicu- 
ous of  course  in  Miles  in  particular  that  he 
appeared  to  wish  to  show  how  easily  he  could 
let  me  down.  This  child,  to  my  memory,  really 
lives  in  a  setting  of  beauty  and  misery  that  no 
words  can  translate  ;  there  was  a  distinction  all 
167 


158  THE   TUKN   OP   THE   SCREW 

his  own  in  every  impulse  he  revealed  ;  never  was 
a  small  natural  creature,  to  the  uninitiated  eye  all 
frankness  and  freedom,  a  more  ingenious,  a  more 
extraordinary  little  gentleman.  I  had  perpetually 
to  guard  against  the  wonder  of  contemplation  into 
which  my  initiated  view  betrayed  me;  to  check 
the  irrelevant  gaze  and  discouraged  sigh  in  which 
I  constantly  both  attacked  and  renounced  the 
enigma  of  what  such  a  little  gentleman  could 
have  done  that  deserved  a  penalty.  Say  that, 
by  the  dark  prodigy  I  knew,  the  imagination  of 
all  evil  had  been  opened  up  to  him :  all  the  jus- 
tice within  me  ached  for  the  proof  that  it  could 
ever  have  flowered  into  an  act. 

He  had  never,  at  any  rate,  been  such  a  little 
gentleman  as  when,  after  our  early  dinner  on  this 
dreadful  day,  he  came  round  to  me  and  asked  if 
I  shouldn't  like  him,  for  half  an  hour,  to  play  to 
me.  David  playing  to  Saul  could  never  have 
shown  a  finer  sense  of  the  occasion.  It  was 
literally  a  charming  exhibition  of  tact,  of  mag- 
nanimity, and  quite  tantamount  to  his  saying 
outright :  "  The  true  knights  we  love  to  read 
about  never  push  an  advantage  too  far.  I  know 
what  you  mean  now :  you  mean  that  —  to  be  let 
alone  yourself  and  not  followed  up  —  you'll  cease 
to  worry  and  spy  upon  me,  won't  keep  me  so 


THE  TUEN  OF  THE  SCKEW  159 

close  to  you,  will  let  me  go  and  come.  Well,  I 
'  come,'  you  see  —  but  I  don't  go !  There'll  be 
plenty  of  time  for  that.  I  do  really  delight  in 
your  society,  and  I  only  want  to  show  you  that  I 
contended  for  a  principle."  It  may  be  imagined 
whether  I  resisted  this  appeal  or  failed  to  accom- 
pany him  again,  hand  in  hand,  to  the  schoolroom. 
He  sat  down  at  the  old  piano  and  played  as  he 
had  never  played,  and  if  there  are  those  who 
think  he  had  better  have  been  kicking  a  football 
I  can  only  say  that  I  wholly  agree  with  them. 
For  at  the  end  of  a  time  that  under  his  influence 
I  had  quite  ceased  to  measure  I  started  up  with 
a  strange  sense  of  having  literally  slept  at  my 
post.  It  was  after  luncheon,  and  by  the  school- 
room fire,  and  yet  I  hadn't  really,  in  the  least, 
slept :  I  had  only  done  something  much  worse 
—  I  had  forgotten.  Where,  all  this  time,  was 
Flora?  When  I  put  the  question  to  Miles  he 
played  on  a  minute  before  answering,  and  then 
could  only  say :  "  Why,  my  dear,  how  do  1 
know  ?  "  —  breaking  moreover  into  a  happy  laugh 
which,  immediately  after,  as  if  it  were  a  vocal 
accompaniment,  he  prolonged  into  incoherent, 
extravagant  song. 

I  went  straight  to  my  room,  but  his  sister  was 
not  there  ;  then,  before  going  downstairs,  I  looked 


160  THE   TURN   OF   THE  SCREW 

into  several  others.  As  she  was  nowhere  about 
she  would  surely  be  with  Mrs.  Grose,  whom,  in 
the  comfort  of  that  theory,  I  accordingly  pro- 
ceeded in  quest  of.  I  found  her  where  I  had 
found  her  the  evening  before,  but  she  met  my 
quick  challenge  with  blank,  scared  ignorance. 
She  had  only  supposed  that,  after  the  repast,  I 
had  carried  off  both  the  children ;  as  to  which 
she  was  quite  in  her  right,  for  it  was  the  very 
first  time  I  had  allowed  the  little  girl  out  of  my 
sight  without  some  special  provision.  Of  course 
now  indeed  she  might  be  with  the  maids,  so  that 
the  immediate  thing  was  to  look  for  her  without 
an  air  of  alarm.  This  we  promptly  arranged  be- 
tween us;  but  when,  ten  minutes  later  and  in 
pursuance  of  our  arrangement,  we  met  in  the 
hall,  it  was  only  to  report  on  either  side  that 
after  guarded  inquiries  we  had  altogether  failed 
to  trace  her.  For  a  minute  there,  apart  from 
observation,  we  exchanged  mute  alarms,  and  I 
could  feel  with  what  high  interest  my  friend 
returned  me  all  those  I  had  from  the  first  given 
her. 

"She'll  be  above,"  she  presently  said  —  "in 
one  of  the  rooms  you  haven't  searched." 

"No;  she's  at  a  distance."  I  had  made  up 
my  mind.  "She  has  gone  out." 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW        161 

Mrs.  Grose  stared.     "Without  a  hat?" 

I  naturally  also  looked  volumes.  "  Isn't  that 
woman  always  without  one  ?  " 

"She's  with  Tier? " 

"She's  with  her!"  I  declared.  "We  must 
find  them." 

My  hand  was  on  my  friend's  arm,  but  she 
failed  for  the  moment,  confronted  with  such  an 
account  of  the  matter,  to  respond  to  my  press- 
ure. She  communed,  on  the  contrary,  on  the 
spot,  with  her  uneasiness.  "And  where's 
Master  Miles?" 

"  Oh,  Tie's  with  Quint.  They're  in  the  school- 
room." 

"  Lord,  Miss !  "  My  view,  I  was  myself 
aware  —  and  therefore  I  suppose  my  tone  — 
had  never  yet  reached  so  calm  an  assurance. 

"The  trick's  played,"  I  went  on;  "they've 
successfully  worked  their  plan.  He  found  the 
most  divine  little  way  to  keep  me  quiet  while 
she  went  off." 

"  '  Divine '  ?  "  Mrs.  Grose  bewilderedly  echoed. 

"  Infernal,  then !  "  I  almost  cheerfully  re- 
joined. "He  has  provided  for  himself  as  well. 
But  come  !  " 

She  had  helplessly  gloomed  at  the  upper 
regions.  "  You  leave  him ?  " 


162  THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCREW 

"So  long  with  Quint?  Yes — I  don't  mind 
that  now." 

She  always  ended,  at  these  moments,  by  get- 
ting possession  of  my  hand,  and  in  this  manner 
she  could  at  present  still  stay  me.  But  after 
gasping  an  instant  at  my  sudden  resignation, 
"  Because  of  your  letter  ?  "  she  eagerly  brought 
out. 

I  quickly,  by  way  of  answer,  felt  for  my  let- 
ter, drew  it  forth,  held  it  up,  and  then,  freeing 
myself,  went  and  laid  it  on  the  great  hall-table. 
"Luke  will  take  it,"  I  said  as  I  came  back.  I 
reached  the  house-door  and  opened  it ;  I  was 
already  on  the  steps. 

My  companion  still  demurred :  the  storm  of 
the  night  and  the  early  morning  had  dropped, 
but  the  afternoon  was  damp  and  grey.  I  came 
down  to  the  drive  while  she  stood  in  the  door- 
way. "  You  go  with  nothing  on  ?  " 

"  What  do  I  care  when  the  child  has  nothing  ? 
I  can't  wait  to  dress,"  I  cried,  "  and  if  you  must 
do  so,  I  leave  you.  Try  meanwhile,  yourself, 
upstairs." 

"With  them?"  Oh,  on  this,  the  poor  woman 
promptly  joined  me ! 


XIX 

WE  went  straight  to  the  lake,  as  it  was  called 
at  Ely,  and  I  dare  say  rightly  called,  though  I 
reflect  that  it  may  in  fact  have  been  a  sheet  of 
water  less  remarkable  than  it  appeared  to  my 
untravelled  eyes.  My  acquaintance  with  sheets 
of  water  was  small,  and  the  pool  of  Ely,  at  all 
events  on  the  few  occasions  of  my  consenting, 
under  the  protection  of  my  pupils,  to  affront 
its  surface  in  the  old  flat-bottomed  boat  moored 
there  for  our  use,  had  impressed  me  both  with 
its  extent  and  its  agitation.  The  usual  place 
of  embarkation  was  half  a  mile  from  the  house, 
but  I  had  an  intimate  conviction  that,  wherever 
Flora  might  be,  she  was  not  near  home.  She 
had  not  given  me  the  slip  for  any  small  ad- 
venture, and,  since  the  day  of  the  very  great 
one  that  I  had  shared  with  her  by  the  pond, 
I  had  been  aware,  in  our  walks,  of  the  quarter 
to  which  she  most  inclined.  This  was  why  I 
had  now  given  to  Mrs.  Grose's  steps  so  marked 
163 


164  THE   TURN    OP   THE   SCREW 

a  direction  —  a  direction  that  made  her,  when 
she  perceived  it,  oppose  a  resistance  that  showed 
me  she  was  freshly  mystified.  "  You're  going  to 
the  water,  Miss? — you  think  she's  in ?" 

"She  may  be,  though  the  depth  is,  I  believe, 
nowhere  very  great.  But  what  I  judge  most 
likely  is  that  she's  on  the  spot  from  which,  the 
other  day,  we  saw  together  what  I  told  you." 

"When  she  pretended  not  to  see ?" 

"With  that  astounding  self-possession!  I've 
always  been  sure  she  wanted  to  go  back  alone. 
And  now  her  brother  has  managed  it  for  her." 

Mrs.  Grose  still  stood  where  she  had  stopped. 
"  You  suppose  they  really  talk  of  them  ?  " 

I  could  meet  this  with  a  confidence  !  "  They 
say  things  that,  if  we  heard  them,  would  simply 
appal  us." 

"And  if  she  it  there ?" 

"Yes?" 

"Then  Miss  Jessel  is?" 

"Beyond  a  doubt.     You  shall  see." 

"  Oh,  thank  you ! "  my  friend  cried,  planted 
so  firm  that,  taking  it  in,  I  went  straight  on 
without  her.  By  the  time  I  reached  the  pool, 
however,  she  was  close  behind  me,  and  I  knew 
that,  whatever,  to  her  apprehension,  might  be- 
fall me,  the  exposure  of  my  society  struck  her 


THE  TUEN  OF  THE  SCKEW        165 

as  her  least  danger.  She  exhaled  a  moan  of 
relief  as  we  at  last  came  in  sight  of  the  greater 
part  of  the  water  without  a  sight  of  the  child. 
There  was  no  trace  of  Flora  on  that  nearer  side 
of  the  bank  where  my  observation  of  her  had 
been  most  startling,  and  none  on  the  opposite 
edge,  where,  save  for  a  margin  of  some  twenty 
yards,  a  thick  copse  came  down  to  the  water. 
The  pond,  oblong  in  shape,  had  a  width  so  scant 
compared  to  its  length  that,  with  its  ends  out 
of  view,  it  might  have  been  taken  for  a  scant 
river.  We  looked  at  the  empty  expanse,  and 
then  I  felt  the  suggestion  of  my  friend's  eyes. 
I  knew  what  she  meant  and  I  replied  with  a 
negative  headshake. 

"No,  no  ;  wait!     She  has  taken  the  boat." 

My  companion  stared  at  the  vacant  rnooring- 
place  and  then  again  across  the  lake.  "  Then 
where  is  it?" 

"  Our  not  seeing  it  is  the  strongest  of  proofs. 
She  has  used  it  to  go  over,  and  then  has  managed 
to  hide  it." 

"All  alone  —  that  child?" 

"  She's  not  alone,  and  at  such  times  she's  not  a 
child:  she's  an  old,  old  woman."  I  scanned  all 
the  visible  shore  while  Mrs.  Grose  took  again,  into 
the  queer  element  I  offered  her,  one  of  her  plunges 


166  THE  TURF   OF   THE   SCREW 

of  submission;  then  I  pointed  out  that  the  boat 
might  perfectly  be  in  a  small  refuge  formed  by  one 
of  the  recesses  of  the  pool,  an  indentation  masked, 
for  the  hither  side,  by  a  projection  of  the  bank 
and  by  a  clump  of  trees  growing  close  to  the 
water. 

"But  if  the  boat's  there,  where  on  earth's  she  f  " 
my  colleague  anxiously  asked. 

"  That's  exactly  what  we  must  learn."  And  I 
started  to  walk  further. 

"  By  going  all  the  way  round?  " 

"  Certainly,  far  as  it  is.  It  will  take  us  but 
ten  minutes,  but  it's  far  enough  to  have  made  the 
child  prefer  not  to  walk.  She  went  straight 
over." 

"  Laws  !  "  cried  my  friend  again  ;  the  chain  of 
my  logic  was  ever  too  much  for  her.  It  dragged 
her  at  my  heels  even  now,  and  when  we  had  got 
half-way  round  —  a  devious,  tiresome  process,  on 
ground  much  broken  and  by  a  path  choked  with 
overgrowth  —  I  paused  to  give  her  breath.  I 
sustained  her  with  a  grateful  arm,  assuring  her 
that  she  might  hugely  help  me ;  and  this  started 
us  afresh,  so  that  in  the  course  of  but  few  minutes 
more  we  reached  a  point  from  which  we  found 
the  boat  to  be  where  I  had  supposed  it.  It  had 
been  intentionally  left  as  much  as  possible  out  of 


THE  TURN  OF   THE   SCREW  167 

sight  and  was  tied  to  one  of  the  stakes  of  a  fence 
that  came,  just  there,  down  to  the  brink  and  that 
had  been  an  assistance  to  disembarking.  I  rec- 
ognised, as  I  looked  at  the  pair  of  short,  thick 
oars,  quite  safely  drawn  up,  the  prodigious  char- 
acter of  the  feat  for  a  little  girl ;  but  I  had  lived, 
by  this  time,  too  long  among  wonders  and  had 
panted  to  too  many  livelier  measures.  There  was 
a  gate  in  the  fence,  through  which  we  passed,  and 
that  brought  us,  after  a  trifling  interval,  more 
into  the  open.  Then,  "  There  she  is  I  "  we  both 
exclaimed  at  once. 

Flora,  a  short  way  off,  stood  before  us  on  the 
grass  and  smiled  as  if  her  performance  was  now 
complete.  The  next  thing  she  did,  however,  was 
to  stoop  straight  down  and  pluck  —  quite  as  if  it 
were  all  she  was  there  for  —  a  big,  ugly  spray  of 
withered  fern.  I  instantly  became  sure  she  had 
just  come  out  of  the  copse.  She  waited  for  us, 
not  herself  taking  a  step,  and  I  was  conscious 
of  the  rare  solemnity  with  which  we  presently 
approached  her.  She  smiled  and  smiled,  and  we 
met ;  but  it  was  all  done  in  a  silence  by  this  time 
flagrantly  ominous.  Mrs.  Grose  was  the  first  to 
break  the  spell :  she  threw  herself  on  her  knees 
and,  drawing  the  child  to  her  breast,  clasped  in 
a  long  embrace  the  little  tender,  yielding  body. 


168  THE   TURN    OP   THE   SCREW 

While  this  dumb  convulsion  lasted  I  could  only 
watch  it  —  which  I  did  the  more  intently  when  I 
saw  Flora's  face  peep  at  me  over  our  companion's 
shoulder.  It  was  serious  now  —  the  flicker  had 
left  it ;  but  it  strengthened  the  pang  with  which 
I  at  that  moment  envied  Mrs.  Grose  the  simplicity 
of  her  relation.  Still,  all  this  while,  nothing  more 
passed  between  us  save  that  Flora  had  let  her 
foolish  fern  again  drop  to  the  ground.  What 
she  and  I  had  virtually  said  to  each  other  was 
that  pretexts  were  useless  now.  When  Mrs. 
Grose  finally  got  up  she  kept  the  child's  hand,  so 
that  the  two  were  still  before  me ;  and  the 
singular  reticence  of  our  communion  was  even 
more  marked  in  the  frank  look  she  launched  me. 
"  I'll  be  hanged,"  it  said,  "  if  I'll  speak !  " 

It  was  Flora  who,  gazing  all  over  me  in  candid 
wonder,  was  the  first.  She  was  struck  with  our 
bareheaded  aspect.  "Why,  where  are  your 
things?  " 

"  Where  yours  are,  my  dear  !  "  I  promptly 
returned. 

She  had  already  got  back  her  gaiety,  and 
appeared  to  take  this  as  an  answer  quite  suffi- 
cient. "  And  where's  Miles  ?  "  she  went  on. 

There  was  something  in  the  small  valour  of 
it  that  quite  finished  me :  these  three  words 


THE  TURN  OP  THE  SCREW        169 

from  her  were,  in  a  flash  like  the  glitter  of  a 
drawn  blade,  the  jostle  of  the  cup  that  my  hand, 
for  weeks  and  weeks,  had  held  high  and  full 
to  the  brim  and  that  now,  even  before  speaking, 
I  felt  overflow  in  a  deluge.  "I'll  tell  you  if 

you'll  tell  me "  I  heard  myself  say,  then 

heard  the  tremor  in  which  it  broke. 

"Well,  what?" 

Mrs.  Grose's  suspense  blazed  at  me,  but  it 
was  too  late  now,  and  I  brought  the  thing  out 
handsomely.  "Where,  my  pet,  is  Miss  Jessel?" 


XX 


JUST  as  in  the  churchyard  with  Miles,  the 
whole  thing  was  upon  us.  Much  as  I  had 
made  of  the  fact  that  this  name  had  never  once, 
between  us,  been  sounded,  the  quick,  smitten 
glare  with  which  the  child's  face  now  received 
it  fairly  likened  my  breach  of  the  silence  to 
the  smash  of  a  pane  of  glass.  It  added  to  the 
interposing  cry,  as  if  to  stay  the  blow,  that  Mrs. 
Grose,  at  the  same  instant,  uttered  over  my 
violence  —  the  shriek  of  a  creature  scared,  or 
rather  wounded,  which,  in  turn,  within  a  few 
seconds,  was  completed  by  a  gasp  of  my  own. 
I  seized  my  colleague's  arm.  "  She's  there,  she's 
there  !  " 

Miss  Jessel  stood  before  us  on  the  opposite 
bank  exactly  as  she  had  stood  the  other  time, 
and  I  remember,  strangely,  as  the  first  feeling 
now  produced  in  me,  my  thrill  of  joy  at  having 
brought  on  a  proof.  She  was  there,  and  I  was 
justified ;  she  was  there,  and  I  was  neither  cruel 
170 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW        171 

nor  mad.  She  was  there  for  poor  scared  Mrs. 
Grose,  but  she  was  there  most  for  Flora;  and 
no  moment  of  my  monstrous  time  was  perhaps 
so  extraordinary  as  that  in  which  I  consciously 
threw  out  to  her  —  with  the  sense  that,  pale 
and  ravenous  demon  as  she  was,  she  would  catch 
and  understand  it  —  an  inarticulate  message  of 
gratitude.  She  rose  erect  on  the  spot  my  friend 
and  I  had  lately  quitted,  and  there  was  not,  in 
all  the  long  reach  of  her  desire,  an  inch  of  her 
evil  that  fell  short.  This  first  vividness  of  vision 
and  emotion  were  things  of  a  few  seconds,  during 
which  Mrs.  Grose's  dazed  blink  across  to  where 
I  pointed  struck  me  as  a  sovereign  sign  that 
she  too  at  last  saw,  just  as  it  carried  my  own 
eyes  precipitately  to  the  child.  The  revelation 
then  of  the  manner  in  which  Flora  was  affected 
startled  me,  in  truth,  far  more  than  it  would  have 
done  to  find  her  also  merely  agitated,  for  direct 
dismay  was  of  course  not  what  I  had  expected. 
Prepared  and  on  her  guard  as  our  pursuit  had 
actually  made  her,  she  would  repress  every 
betrayal ;  and  I  was  therefore  shaken,  on  the  spot, 
by  my  first  glimpse  of  the  particular  one  for 
which  I  had  not  allowed.  To  see  her,  without 
a  convulsion  of  her  small  pink  face,  not  even 
feign  to  glance  in  the  direction  of  the  prodigy 


172  THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCKEW 

I  announced,  but  only,  instead  of  that,  turn  at 
me  an  expression  of  hard,  still  gravity,  an  ex- 
pression absolutely  new  and  unprecedented  and 
that  appeared  to  read  and  accuse  and  judge  me  — 
this  was  a  stroke  that  somehow  converted  the 
little  girl  herself  into  the  very  presence  that 
could  make  me  quail.  I  quailed  even  though 
my  certitude  that  she  thoroughly  saw  was  never 
greater  than  at  that  instant,  and  in  the  immediate 
need  to  defend  myself  I  called  it  passionately  to 
witness.  "  She's  there,  you  little  unhappy  thing 
—  there,  there,  there,  and  you  see  her  as  well 
as  you  see  me !  "  I  had  said  shortly  before  to 
Mrs.  Grose  that  she  was  not  at  these  times  a 
child,  but  an  old,  old  woman,  and  that  description 
of  her  could  not  have  been  more  strikingly  con- 
firmed than  in  the  way  in  which,  for  all  answer 
to  this,  she  simply  showed  me,  without  a  con- 
cession, an  admission,  of  her  eyes,  a  countenance 
of  deeper  and  deeper,  of  indeed  suddenly  quite 
fixed,  reprobation.  I  was  by  this  time  —  if  I 
can  put  the  whole  thing  at  all  together  —  more 
appalled  at  what  I  may  properly  call  her  man- 
ner than  at  anything  else,  though  it  was  simul- 
taneously with  this  that  I  became  aware  of 
having  Mrs.  Grose  also,  and  very  formidably, 
to  reckon  with.  My  elder  companion,  the  next 


THE  TURN   OF  THE   SCREW  173 

moment,  at  any  rate,  blotted  out  everything  but 
her  own  flushed  face  and  her  loud,  shocked 
protest,  a  burst  of  high  disapproval.  "  What  a 
dreadful  turn,  to  be  sure,  Miss  !  Where  on  earth 
do  you  see  anything  ?  " 

I  could  only  grasp  her  more  quickly  yet,  for 
even  while  she  spoke  the  hideous  plain  presence 
stood  undimmed  and  undaunted.  It  had  already 
lasted  a  minute,  and  it  lasted  while  I  continued, 
seizing  my  colleague,  quite  thrusting  her  at  it 
and  presenting  her  to  it,  to  insist  with  my  point- 
ing hand.  "You  don't  see  her  exactly  as  we 
see  ?  —  you  mean  to  say  you  don't  now  —  now  f 
She's  as  big  as  a  blazing  fire !  Only  look,  dear- 
est woman,  look !"  She  looked,  even  as  I 

did,  and  gave  me,  with  her  deep  groan  of  nega- 
tion, repulsion,  compassion  —  the  mixture  with 
her  pity  of  her  relief  at  her  exemption  —  a  sense, 
touching  to  me  even  then,  that  she  would  have 
backed  me  up  if  she  could.  I  might  well  have 
needed  that,  for  with  this  hard  blow  of  the  proof 
that  her  eyes  were  hopelessly  sealed  I  felt  my 
own  situation  horribly  crumble,  I  felt  —  I  saw 
—  my  livid  predecessor  press,  from  her  position, 
on  my  defeat,  and  I  was  conscious,  more  than 
all,  of  what  I  should  have  from  this  instant  to 
deal  with  in  the  astounding  little  attitude  of 


174  THE  TURN  OP  THE   SCREW 

Flora.  Into  this  attitude  Mrs.  Grose  immedi- 
ately and  violently  entered,  breaking,  even  while 
there  pierced  through  my  sense  of  ruin  a  pro- 
digious private  triumph,  into  breathless  reas- 
surance. 

"  She  isn't  there,  little  lady,  and  nobody's  there 

—  and  you  never  see  nothing,  my  sweet  !     How 
can  poor  Miss  Jessel  —  when  poor  Miss  Jessel's 
dead  and  buried  ?     We  know,  don't  we,  love  ?  "  — 
and   she  appealed,  blundering   in,   to  the  child. 
"  It's  all  a  mere  mistake  and  a  worry  and  a  joke 

—  and  we'll  go  home  as  fast  as  we  can  ! " 

Our  companion,  on  this,  had  responded  with 
a  strange,  quick  primness  of  propriety,  and  they 
were  again,  with  Mrs.  Grose  on  her  feet,  united, 
as  it  were,  in  pained  opposition  to  me.  Flora 
continued  to  fix  me  with  her  small  mask  of  rep- 
robation, and  even  at  that  minute  I  prayed  God 
to  forgive  me  for  seeming  to  see  that,  as  she 
stood  there  holding  tight  to  our  friend's  dress, 
her  incomparable  childish  beauty  had  suddenly 
failed,  had  quite  vanished.  I've  said  it  already 

—  she  was  literally,  she  was  hideously,  hard ;  she 
had  turned  common  and  almost  ugly.     "  I  don't 
know  what   you  mean.      I   see   nobody.     I    see 
nothing.     I   never   have.     I  think  you're  cruel. 
I  don't  like  you  !  "     Then,  after  this  deliverance, 


THE  TURN   OP  THE   SCREW  175 

which  might  have  been  that  of  a  vulgarly  pert 
little  girl  in  the  street,  she  hugged  Mrs.  Grose 
more  closely  and  buried  in  her  skirts  the  dread- 
ful little  face.  In  this  position  she  produced  an 
almost  furious  wail.  "Take  me  away,  take  me 
away  —  oh,  take  me  away  from  her!" 

"  From  me  ?  "  I  panted. 

"  From  you  —  from  you  !  "  she  cried. 

Even  Mrs.  Grose  looked  across  at  me  dis- 
mayed, while  I  had  nothing  to  do  but  commu- 
nicate again  with  the  figure  that,  on  the  opposite 
bank,  without  a  movement,  as  rigidly  still  as  if 
catching,  beyond  the  interval,  our  voices,  was  as 
vividly  there  for  my  disaster  as  it  was  not  there 
for  my  service.  The  wretched  child  had  spoken 
exactly  as  if  she  had  got  from  some  outside  source 
each  of  her  stabbing  little  words,  and  I  could 
therefore,  in  the  full  despair  of  all  I  had  to  ac- 
cept, but  sadly  shake  my  head  at  her.  "  If  I  had 
ever  doubted,  all  my  doubt  would  at  present  have 
gone.  I've  been  living  with  the  miserable  truth, 
and  now  it  has  only  too  much  closed  round  me. 
Of  course  I've  lost  you :  I've  interfered,  and 
you've  seen  —  under  her  dictation  "  —  with  which 
I  faced,  over  the  pool  again,  our  infernal  witness 
—  "the  easy  and  perfect  way  to  meet  it.  I've 
done  my  best,  but  I've  lost  you.  Good-bye." 


176  THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCREW 

For  Mrs.  Grose  I  had  an  imperative,  an  almost 
frantic  "  Go,  go  !  "  before  which,  in  infinite  dis- 
tress, but  mutely  possessed  of  the  little  girl  and 
clearly  convinced,  in  spite  of  her  blindness,  that 
something  awful  had  occurred  and  some  collapse 
engulfed  us,  she  retreated,  by  the  way  we  had 
come,  as  fast  as  she  could  move. 

Of  what  first  happened  when  I  was  left  alone 
I  had  no  subsequent  memory.  I  only  knew  that 
at  the  end  of,  I  suppose,  a  quarter  of  an  hour, 
an  odorous  dampness  and  roughness,  chilling  and 
piercing  my  trouble,  had  made  me  understand 
that  I  must  have  thrown  myself,  on  my  face,  on 
the  ground  and  given  way  to  a  wildness  of  grief. 
I  must  have  lain  there  long  and  cried  and  sobbed, 
for  when  I  raised  my  head  the  day  was  almost 
done.  I  got  up  and  looked  a  moment,  through 
the  twilight,  at  the  grey  pool  and  its  blank, 
haunted  edge,  and  then  I  took,  back  to  the 
house,  my  dreary  and  difficult  course.  When 
I  reached  the  gate  in  the  fence  the  boat,  to  my 
surprise,  was  gone,  so  that  I  had  a  fresh  reflec- 
tion to  make  on  Flora's  extraordinary  command 
of  the  situation.  She  passed  that  night,  by 
the  most  tacit,  and  I  should  add,  were  not  the 
word  so  grotesque  a  false  note,  the  happiest  of 
arrangements,  with  Mrs.  Grose.  I  saw  neither 


THE   TURN   OF  THE   SCREW  177 

of  them  on  my  return,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
as  by  an  ambiguous  compensation,  I  saw  a  great 
deal  of  Miles.  I  saw  —  I  can  use  no  other  phrase 

—  so  much  of  him  that  it  was  as  if  it  were  more 
than  it  had  ever  been.     No  evening  I  had  passed 
at  Ely  had  the  portentous  quality  of  this  one  ; 
in    spite  of    which  —  and  in   spite  also   of    the 
deeper  depths  of  consternation  that  had  opened 
beneath    my  feet  —  there    was  literally,   in    the 
ebbing  actual,  an  extraordinarily  sweet  sadness. 
On  reaching  the  house  I  had  never  so  much  as 
looked  for  the  boy;  I  had  simply  gone  straight 
to  my  room  to  change  what  I  was  wearing  and  to 
take  in,  at  a  glance,  much  material  testimony  to 
Flora's  rupture.      Her  little  belongings  had  all 
been  removed.     When  later,  by  the  schoolroom 
fire,  I  was  served  with  tea  by  the  usual  maid,  I 
indulged,   on   the   article   of  my  other  pupil,  in 
no  inquiry  whatever.     He  had  his  freedom  now 

—  he  might  have  it  to  the  end  !     Well,  he  did 
have  it ;    and  it  consisted  —  in  part   at  least  — 
of    his   coming  in   at   about   eight    o'clock    and 
sitting   down  with   me   in   silence.     On   the   re- 
moval  of  the  tea-things   I   had   blown   out  the 
candles  and  drawn  my  chair  closer  :  I  was  con- 
scious   of    a   mortal    coldness   and   felt  as   if    I 
should  never  again  be  warm.     So,  when  he  ap- 

v 


178  THE  TUKN   OP  THE   SCREW 

peared,  I  was  sitting  in  the  glow  with  my 
thoughts.  He  paused  a  moment  by  the  door 
as  if  to  look  at  me ;  then  —  as  if  to  share  them 
—  came  to  the  other  side  of  the  hearth  and 
sank  into  a  chair.  We  sat  there  in  absolute 
stillness ;  yet  he  wanted,  I  felt,  to  be  with  me. 


XXI 

BEFORE  a  new  day,  in  my  room,  had  fully 
broken,  my  eyes  opened  to  Mrs.  Grose,  who  had 
come  to  my  bedside  with  worse  news.  Flora 
was  so  markedly  feverish  that  an  illness  was 
perhaps  at  hand ;  she  had  passed  a  night  of 
extreme  unrest,  a  night  agitated  above  all  by 
fears  that  had  for  their  subject  not  in  the  least 
her  former,  but  wholly  her  present,  governess.  It 
was  not  against  the  possible  re-entrance  of  Miss 
Jessel  on  the  scene  that  she  protested  —  it  was 
conspicuously  and  passionately  against  mine.  I 
was  promptly  on  my  feet  of  course,  and  with  an 
immense  deal  to  ask ;  the  more  that  my  friend 
had  discernibly  now  girded  her  loins  to  meet  me 
once  more.  This  I  felt  as  soon  as  I  had  put 
to  her  the  question  of  her  sense  of  the  child's 
sincerity  as  against  my  own.  "  She  persists  in 
denying  to  you  that  she  saw,  or  has  ever  seen, 
anything?  " 

My  visitor's  trouble,  truly,  was  great.  "Ah, 
179 


180  THE  TtJKN  OF   THE  SCREW 

Miss,  it  isn't  a  matter  on  which  I  can  push  her  ! 
Yet  it  isn't  either,  I  must  say,  as  if  I  much 
needed  to.  It  has  made  her,  every  inch  of  her, 
quite  old." 

"Oh,  I  see  her  perfectly  from  here.  She  re- 
sents, for  all  the  world  like  some  high  little 
personage,  the  imputation  on  her  truthfulness 
and,  as  it  were,  her  respectability.  '  Miss  Jessel 
indeed  —  she  ! '  Ah,  she's  '  respectable,'  the  chit ! 
The  impression  she  gave  me  there  yesterday  was, 
I  assure  you,  the  very  strangest  of  all ;  it  was 
quite  beyond  any  of  the  others.  I  did  put  my 
foot  in  it !  She'll  never  speak  to  me  again." 

Hideous  and  obscure  as  it  all  was,  it  held 
Mrs.  Grose  briefly  silent ;  then  she  granted  my 
point  with  a  frankness  which,  I  made  sure,  had 
more  behind  it.  "  I  think  indeed,  Miss,  she  never 
will.  She  do  have  a  grand  manner  about  it !  " 

"And  that  manner"  —  I  summed  it  up  —  "is 
practically  what's  the  matter  with  her  now  !  " 

Oh,  that  manner,  I  could  see  in  my  visitor's 
face,  and  not  a  little  else  besides  !  "  She  asks 
me  every  three  minutes  if  I  think  you're  coming 
in." 

"I  see — I  see."  I  too,  on  my  side,  had  so 
much  more  than  worked  it  out.  "  Has  she  said 
to  you  since  yesterday  —  except  to  repudiate  her 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW        181 

familiarity  with  anything  so  dreadful  —  a  single 
other  word  about  Miss  Jessel?" 

"Not  one,  Miss.  And  of  course  you  know," 
my  friend  added,  "I  took  it  from  her,  by  the 
lake,  that,  just  then  and  there  at  least,  there  was 
nobody." 

"  Rather  !  And,  naturally,  you  take  it  from 
her  still." 

"  I  don't  contradict  her.     What  else  can  I  do  ?  " 

"  Nothing  in  the  world  !  You've  the  cleverest 
little  person  to  deal  with.  They've  made  them — 
their  two  friends,  I  mean  —  still  cleverer  even 
than  nature  did ;  for  it  was  wondrous  material 
to  play  on  !  Flora  has  now  her  grievance,  and 
she'll  work  it  to  the  end." 

"  Yes,  Miss ;  but  to  what  end  ?  " 

"Why,  that  of  dealing  with  me  to  her  uncle. 
She'll  make  me  out  to  him  the  lowest  creat- 


ure 


.T  " 


I  winced  at  the  fair  show  of  the  scene  in 
Mrs.  Grose's  face;  she  looked  for  a  minute  as 
if  she  sharply  saw  them  together.  "And  him 
who  thinks  so  well  of  you ! " 

"He  has  an  odd  way  —  it  comes  over  me 
now,"  I  laughed,  "  —  of  proving  it!  But  that 
doesn't  matter.  What  Flora  wants,  of  course,  is 
to  get  rid  of  me." 


182  THE  TURN  OF   THE  SCREW 

My  companion  bravely  concurred.  "Never 
again  to  so  much  as  look  at  you." 

"  So  that  what  you've  come  to  me  now  for," 
I  asked,  "  is  to  speed  me  on  my  way  ?  "  Before 
she  had  time  to  reply,  however,  I  had  her  in 
check.  "  I've  a  better  idea  —  the  result  of  my 
reflections.  My  going  would  seem  the  right 
thing,  and  on  Sunday  I  was  terribly  near  it. 
Yet  that  won't  do.  It's  you  who  must  go. 
You  must  take  Flora." 

My  visitor,  at  this,  did  speculate.  "But 
where  in  the  world ?" 

"  Away  from  here.  Away  from  them.  Away, 
even  most  of  all,  now,  from  me.  Straight  to 
her  uncle." 

"Only  to  tell  on  you ?" 

"  No,  not  '  only ' !  To  leave  me,  in  addition, 
with  my  remedy." 

She  was  still  vague.  "And  what  is  your 
remedy  ?  n 

"Your  loyalty,  to  begin  with.  And  then 
Miles's." 

She  looked  at  me  hard.  "Do  you  think 
he ?" 

"Won't  if  he  has  the  chance,  turn  on  me? 
Yes,  I  venture  still  to  think  it.  At  all  events, 
I  want  to  try.  Get  off  with  his  sister  as  soon 


THE  TUKN  OF  THE   SCREW  183 

as  possible  and  leave  me  with  him  alone."  I 
was  amazed,  myself,  at  the  spirit  I  had  still  in 
reserve,  and  therefore  perhaps  a  trifle  the  more 
disconcerted  at  the  way  in  which,  in  spite  of 
this  fine  example  of  it,  she  hesitated.  "  There's 
one  thing,  of  course,"  I  went  on :  "  they  mustn't, 
before  she  goes,  see  each  other  for  three  seconds. " 
Then  it  came  over  me  that,  in  spite  of  Flora's 
presumable  sequestration  from  the  instant  of 
her  return  from  the  pool,  it  might  already  be 
too  late.  "Do  you  mean,"  I  anxiously  asked, 
"that  they  have  met?" 

At  this  she  quite  flushed.  "Ah,  Miss,  I'm 
not  such  a  fool  as  that !  If  I've  been  obliged 
to  leave  her  three  or  four  times,  it  has  been 
each  time  with  one  of  the  maids,  and  at  pres- 
ent, though  she's  alone,  she's  locked  in  safe. 
And  yet  —  and  yet !  "  There  were  too  many 
things. 

"And  yet  what?" 

"Well,  are  you  so  sure  of  the  little  gentle- 
man?" 

"I'm  not  sure  of  anything  but  you.  But  I 
have,  since  last  evening,  a  new  hope.  I  think 
he  wants  to  give  me  an  opening.  I  do  believe 
that  —  poor  little  exquisite  wretch !  —  he  wants 
to  speak.  Last  evening,  in  the  firelight  and 


184  THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW 

the  silence,  he  sat  with  me  for  two  hours  as  if 
it  were  just  coming." 

Mrs.  Grose  looked  hard,  through  the  window, 
at  the  grey,  gathering  day.  "  And  did  it  come  ?  " 

"No,  though  I  waited  and  waited,  I  confess 
it  didn't,  and  it  was  without  a  breach  of  the 
silence  or  so  much  as  a  faint  allusion  to  his 
sister's  condition  and  absence  that  we  at  last 
kissed  for  good-night.  All  the  same,"  I  con- 
tinued, "  I  can't,  if  her  uncle  sees  her,  consent 
to  his  seeing  her  brother  without  my  having 
given  the  boy  —  and  most  of  all  because  things 
have  got  so  bad  —  a  little  more  time." 

My  friend  appeared  on  this  ground  more  re- 
luctant than  I  could  quite  understand.  "What 
do  you  mean  by  more  time  ?  " 

"Well,  a  day  or  two  —  really  to  bring  it  out. 
He'll  then  be  on  my  side  —  of  which  you  see 
the  importance.  If  nothing  comes,  I  shall  only 
fail,  and  you  will,  at  the  worst,  have  helped 
me  by  doing,  on  your  arrival  in  town,  whatever 
you  may  have  found  possible."  So  I  put  it 
before  her,  but  she  continued  for  a  little  so 
inscrutably  embarrassed  that  I  came  again  to 
her  aid.  "Unless,  indeed,"  I  wound  up,  "you 
really  want  not  to  go." 

I  could  see  it,  in  her  face,  at  last  clear  itself ; 


THE  TURN  OF  THE   SCREW  185 

she  put  out  her  hand  to  me  as  a  pledge.  "  I'll 
go  —  I'll  go.  I'll  go  this  morning." 

I  wanted  to  be  very  just.  "  If  you  should 
wish  still  to  wait,  I  would  engage  she  shouldn't 
see  me." 

"  No,  no :  it's  the  place  itself.  She  must  leave 
it."  She  held  me  a  moment  with  heavy  eyes, 
then  brought  out  the  rest.  "Your  idea's  the 
right  one.  I  myself,  Miss " 

"Well?" 

"I  can't  stay." 

The  look  she  gave  me  with  it  made  me  jump 
at  possibilities.  "You  mean  that,  since  yester- 
day, you  have  seen ?  " 

She  shook  her  head  with  dignity.  "I've 
heard !  " 

"Heard?" 

"From  that  child  —  horrors  !  There!"  she 
sighed  with  tragic  relief.  "  On  my  honour,  Miss, 

she  says  things !  "  But  at  this  evocation 

she  broke  down ;  she  dropped,  with  a  sudden 
sob,  upon  my  sofa  and,  as  I  had  seen  her  do 
before,  gave  way  to  all  the  grief  of  it. 

It  was  quite  in  another  manner  that  I,  for 
my  part,  let  myself  go.  "  Oh,  thank  God  ! " 

She  sprang  up  again  at  this,  drying  her  eyes 
with  a  groan.  "  « Thank  God '  ?  " 


186  THE   TURN   OF   THE  SCREW 

"  It  so  justifies  me  !  " 

"  It  does  that,  Miss  !  " 

I  couldn't  have  desired  more  emphasis,  but 
I  just  hesitated.  "She's  so  horrible?" 

I  saw  my  colleague  scarce  knew  how  to  put 
it.  "Really  shocking." 

"And  about  me?" 

"About  you,  Miss  —  since  you  must  have  it. 
It's  beyond  everything,  for  a  young  lady  ;  and 
I  can't  think  wherever  she  must  have  picked 
up--" 

"  The  appalling  language  she  applied  to  me  ? 
I  can,  then  !  "  I  broke  in  with  a  laugh  that  was 
doubtless  significant  enough. 

It  only,  in  truth,  left  my  friend  still  more 
grave.  "Well,  perhaps  I  ought  to  also  —  since 
I've  heard  some  of  it  before  !  Yet  I  can't  bear 
it,"  the  poor  woman  went  on  while,  with  the 
same  movement,  she  glanced,  on  my  dressing- 
table,  at  the  face  of  my  watch.  "But  I  must 
go  back." 

I  kept  her,  however.  "  Ah,  if  you  can't  bear 
it !" 

"  How  can  I  stop  with  her,  you  mean  ?  Why, 
just  for  that  :  to  get  her  away.  Far  from  this," 
she  pursued,  "far  from  them " 

"She  may  be  different?   she   may  be  free?" 


THE  TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  187 

I  seized  her  almost  with  joy.  "Then,  in  spite 
of  yesterday,  you  believe " 

"  In  such  doings  ?  "  Her  simple  description 
of  them  required,  in  the  light  of  her  expression, 
to  be  carried  no  further,  and  she  gave  me  the 
whole  thing  as  she  had  never  done.  "I  believe." 

Yes,  it  was  a  joy,  and  we  were  still  shoulder 
to  shoulder :  if  I  might  continue  sure  of  that 
I  should  care  but  little  what  else  happened. 
My  support  in  the  presence  of  disaster  would 
be  the  same  as  it  had  been  in  my  early  need 
of  confidence,  and  if  my  friend  would  answer 
for  my  honesty,  I  would  answer  for  all  the  rest. 
On  the  point  of  taking  leave  of  her,  none  the 
less,  I  was  to  some  extent  embarrassed.  "  There's 
one  thing  of  course  —  it  occurs  to  me  —  to  re- 
member. My  letter,  giving  the  alarm,  will  have 
reached  town  before  you." 

I  now  perceived  still  more  how  she  had  been 
beating  about  the  bush  and  how  weary  at  last 
it  had  made  her.  "  Your  letter  won't  have  got 
there.  Your  letter  never  went." 

"  What  then  became  of  it  ?  " 

"  Goodness  knows  !     Master  Miles " 

"  Do  you  mean  he  took  it  ?  "  I  gasped. 

She  hung  fire,  but  she  overcame  her  reluctance. 
"  I  mean  that  I  saw  yesterday,  when  I  came  back 


188  THE  TURN  OF  THE   SCREW 

with  Miss  Flora,  that  it  wasn't  where  you  had 
put  it.  Later  in  the  evening  I  had  the  chance 
to  question  Luke,  and  he  declared  that  he  had 
neither  noticed  nor  touched  it."  We  could  only 
exchange,  on  this,  one  of  our  deeper  mutual 
soundings,  and  it  was  Mrs.  Grose  who  first 
brought  up  the  plumb  with  an  almost  elate 
"  You  see  !  " 

"Yes,  I  see  that  if  Miles  took  it  instead  he 
probably  will  have  read  it  and  destroyed  it." 

"  And  don't  you  see  anything  else  ?  " 

I  faced  her  a  moment  with  a  sad  smile.  "It 
strikes  me  that  by  this  time  your  eyes  are  open 
even  wider  than  mine." 

They  proved  to  be  so  indeed,  but  she  could 
still  blush,  almost,  to  show  it.  "  I  make  out 
now  what  he  must  have  done  at  school."  And 
she  gave,  in  her  simple  sharpness,  an  almost 
droll  disillusioned  nod.  "  He  stole  !  " 

I  turned  it  over  —  I  tried  to  be  more  judicial. 
"Well  — perhaps." 

She  looked  as  if  she  found  me  unexpectedly 
calm.  "He  stole  letters!" 

She  couldn't  know  my  reasons  for  a  calmness 
after  all  pretty  shallow;  so  I  showed  them  off 
as  I  might.  "I  hope  then  it  was  to  more  pur- 
pose than  in  this  case  !  The  note,  at  any  rate, 


THE  TURN   OP  THE  SCREW  189 

that  I  put  on  the  table  yesterday,"  I  pursued, 
"will  have  given  him  so  scant  an  advantage  — 
for  it  contained  only  the  bare  demand  for  an 
interview  —  that  he  is  already  much  ashamed 
of  having  gone  so  far  for  so  little,  and  that 
what  he  had  on  his  mind  last  evening  was  pre- 
cisely the  need  of  confession."  I  seemed  to 
myself,  for  the  instant,  to  have  mastered  it,  to 
see  it  all.  "  Leave  us,  leave  us  "  —  I  was  already, 
at  the  door,  hurrying  her  off.  "I'll  get  it  out 
of  him.  He'll  meet  me  —  he'll  confess.  If  he 

confesses,  he's  saved.     And  if  he's  saved " 

"Then  you  are?"  The  dear  woman  kissed 
me  on  this,  and  I  took  her  farewell.  "  I'll  save 
you  without  him ! "  she  cried  as  she  went. 


XXII 

YET  it  was  when  she  had  got  off — and  I  missed 
her  on  the  spot  —  that  the  great  pinch  really 
came.  If  I  had  counted  on  what  it  would  give 
me  to  find  myself  alone  with  Miles,  I  speedily 
perceived,  at  least,  that  it  would  give  me  a  meas- 
ure. No  hour  of  my  stay  in  fact  was  so  assailed 
with  apprehensions  as  that  of  my  coming  down  to 
learn  that  the  carriage  containing  Mrs.  Grose  and 
my  younger  pupil  had  already  rolled  out  of  the 
gates.  Now  I  was,  I  said  to  myself,  face  to  face 
with  the  elements,  and  for  much  of  the  rest  of  the 
day,  while  I  fought  my  weakness,  I  could  con- 
sider that  I  had  been  supremely  rash.  It  was  a 
tighter  place  still  than  I  had  yet  turned  round  in ; 
all  the  more  that,  for  the  first  time,  I  could  see  in 
the  aspect  of  others  a  confused  reflection  of  the 
crisis.  What  had  happened  naturally  caused 
them  all  to  stare ;  there  was  too  little  of  the 
explained,  throw  out  whatever  we  might,  in  the 
suddenness  of  my  colleague's  act.  The  maids 
190 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW        191 

and  the  men  looked  blank  ;  the  effect  of  which  on 
my  nerves  was  an  aggravation  until  I  saw  the 
necessity  of  making  it  a  positive  aid.  It  was  pre- 
cisely, in  short,  by  just  clutching  the  helm  that  I 
avoided  total  wreck  ;  and  I  dare  say  that,  to  bear 
up  at  all,  I  became,  that  morning,  very  grand  and 
very  dry.  I  welcomed  the  consciousness  that  I 
was  charged  with  much  to  do,  and  I  caused  it  to 
be  known  as  well  that,  left  thus  to  myself,  I  was 
quite  remarkably  firm.  I  wandered  with  that 
manner,  for  the  next  hour  or  two,  all  over  the 
place  and  looked,  I  have  no  doubt,  as  if  I  were 
ready  for  any  onset.  So,  for  the  benefit  of  whom 
it  might  concern,  I  paraded  with  a  sick  heart. 

The  person  it  appeared  least  to  concern  proved 
to  be,  till  dinner,  little  Miles  himself.  My  per- 
ambulations had  given  me,  meanwhile,  no  glimpse 
of  him,  but  they  had  tended  to  make  more  public 
the  change  taking  place  in  our  relation  as  a  con- 
sequence of  his  having  at  the  piano,  the  day  before, 
kept  me,  in  Flora's  interest,  so  beguiled  and  be- 
fooled. The  stamp  of  publicity  had  of  course 
been  fully  given  by  her  confinement  and  depart- 
ure, and  the  change  itself  was  now  ushered  in  by 
our  non-observance  of  the  regular  custom  of  the 
schoolroom.  He  had  already  disappeared  when, 
on  my  way  down,  I  pushed  open  his  door,  and  I 


192  THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCREW 

learned  below  that  he  had  breakfasted — in  the 
presence  of  a  couple  of  the  maids  —  with  Mrs. 
Grose  and  his  sister.  He  had  then  gone  out,  as 
he  said,  for  a  stroll ;  than  which  nothing,  I  re- 
flected, could  better  have  expressed  his  frank 
view  of  the  abrupt  transformation  of  my  office. 
What  he  would  now  permit  this  office  to  consist 
of  was  yet  to  be  settled  :  there  was  a  queer  relief, 
at  all  events  —  I  mean  for  myself  in  especial  —  in 
the  renouncement  of  one  pretension.  If  so  much 
had  sprung  to  the  surface,  I  scarce  put  it  too 
strongly  in  saying  that  what  had  perhaps  sprung 
highest  was  the  absurdity  of  our  prolonging  the 
fiction  that  I  had  anything  more  to  teach  him. 
It  sufficiently  stuck  out  that,  by  tacit  little  tricks 
in  which  even  more  than  myself  he  carried  out 
the  care  for  my  dignity,  I  had  had  to  appeal  to 
him  to  let  me  off  straining  to  meet  him  on  the 
ground  of  his  true  capacity.  He  had  at  any  rate 
his  freedom  now  ;  I  was  never  to  touch  it  again  ; 
as  I  had  amply  shown,  moreover,  when,  on  his 
joining  me  in  the  schoolroom  the  previous  night, 
I  had  uttered,  on  the  subject  of  the  interval  just 
concluded,  neither  challenge  nor  hint.  I  had  too 
much,  from  this  moment,  my  other  ideas.  Yet 
when  he  at  last  arrived  the  difficulty  of  applying 
them,  the  accumulations  of  my  problem,  were 


THE   TUKX   OF  THE   SCREW  193 

brought  straight  home  to  me  by  the  beautiful 
little  presence  on  which  what  had  occurred  had  as 
yet,  for  the  eye,  dropped  neither  stain  nor  shadow. 
To  mark,  for  the  house,  the  high  state  I  culti- 
vated I  decreed  that  my  meals  with  the  boy 
should  be  served,  as  we  called  it,  downstairs ; 
so  that  I  had  been  awaiting  him  in  the  ponderous 
pomp  of  the  room  outside  of  the  window  of  which 
I  had  had  from  Mrs.  Grose,  that  first  scared 
Sunday,  my  flash  of  something  it  would  scarce 
have  done  to  call  light.  Here  at  present  I  felt 
afresh  —  for  I  had  felt  it  again  and  again  —  how 
my  equilibrium  depended  on  the  success  of  my 
rigid  will,  the  will  to  shut  my  eyes  as  tight  as 
possible  to  the  truth  that  what  I  had  to  deal  with 
was,  revoltingly,  against  nature.  I  could  only 
get  on  at  all  by  taking  "  nature "  into  my  con- 
fidence and  my  account,  by  treating  my  mon- 
strous ordeal  as  a  push  in  a  direction  unusual, 
of  course,  and  unpleasant,  but  demanding,  after 
all,  for  a  fair  front,  only  another  turn  of  the 
screw  of  ordinary  human  virtue.  No  attempt, 
none  the  less,  could  well  require  more  tact  than 
just  this  attempt  to  supply,  one's  self,  all  the 
nature.  How  could  I  put  even  a  little  of  that 
article  into  a  suppression  of  reference  to  what 
had  occurred?  How,  on  the  other  hand,  could 


194  THE   TURN    OF   THE    SCREW 

I  make  a  reference  without  a  new  plunge  into 
the  hideous  obscure?  Well,  a  sort  of  answer, 
after  a  time,  had  come  to  me,  and  it  was  so 
far  confirmed  as  that  I  was  met,  incontestably, 
by  the  quickened  vision  of  what  was  rare  in 
my  little  companion.  It  was  indeed  as  if  he 
had  found  even  now  —  as  he  had  so  often  found 
at  lessons  —  still  some  other  delicate  way  to 
ease  me  off.  Wasn't  there  light  in  the  fact 
which,  as  we  shared  our  solitude,  broke  out 
with  a  specious  glitter  it  had  never  yet  quite 
worn  ?  —  the  fact  that  (opportunity  aiding, 
precious  opportunity  which  had  now  come) 
it  would  be  preposterous,  with  a  child  so  en- 
dowed, to  forgo  the  help  one  might  wrest  from 
absolute  intelligence  ?  What  had  his  intelligence 
been  given  him  for  but  to  save  him  ?  Mightn't 
one,  to  reach  his  mind,  risk  the  stretch  of  an 
angular  arm  over  his  character  ?  It  was  as  if, 
when  we  were  face  to  face  in  the  dining-room, 
he  had  literally  shown  me  the  way.  The  roast 
mutton  was  on  the  table,  and  I  had  dispensed 
with  attendance.  Miles,  before  he  sat  down, 
stood  a  moment  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets 
and  looked  at  the  joint,  on  which  he  seemed  on 
the  point  of  passing  some  humorous  judgment. 
But  what  he  presently  produced  was  :  "  I  say, 
my  dear,  is  she  really  very  awfully  ill  ?  " 


THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW  195 

"Little  Flora?  Not  so  bad  but  that  she'll 
presently  be  better.  London  will  set  her  up. 
Ely  had  ceased  to  agree  with  her.  Come  here 
and  take  your  mutton." 

He  alertly  obeyed  me,  carried  the  plate  care- 
fully to  his  seat,  and,  when  he  was  established, 
went  on.  "  Did  Ely  disagree  with  her  so  terri- 
bly suddenly?" 

"Not  so  suddenly  as  you  might  think.  One 
had  seen  it  coming  on." 

"Then  why  didn't  you  get  her  off  before?" 

"Before  what?" 

"Before  she  became  too  ill  to  travel." 

I  found  myself  prompt.  "  She's  not  too  ill  to 
travel:  she  only  might  have  become  so  if  she 
had  stayed.  This  was  just  the  moment  to 
seize.  The  journey  will  dissipate  the  influence  " 
—  oh,  I  was  grand! — "and  carry  it  off." 

"I  see,  I  see"  —  Miles,  for  that  matter,  was 
grand  too.  He  settled  to  his  repast  with  the 
charming  little  "table  manner"  that,  from  the 
day  of  his  arrival,  had  relieved  me  of  all  gross- 
ness  of  admonition.  Whatever  he  had  been 
driven  from  school  for,  it  was  not  for  ugly 
feeding.  He  was  irreproachable,  as  always,  to- 
day; but  he  was  unmistakeably  more  conscious. 
He  was  discernibly  trying  to  take  for  granted 


196  THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCREW 

more  things  than  he  found,  without  assistance, 
quite  easy ;  and  he  dropped  into  peaceful  silence 
while  he  felt  his  situation.  Our  meal  was  of 
the  briefest  —  mine  a  vain  pretence,  and  I  had 
the  things  immediately  removed.  While  this 
was  done  Miles  stood  again  with  his  hands  in 
his  little  pockets  and  his  back  to  me  —  stood 
and  looked  out  of  the  wide  window  through 
which,  that  other  day,  I  had  seen  what  pulled 
me  up.  We  continued  silent  while  the  maid 
was  with  us  —  as  silent,  it  whimsically  occurred 
to  me,  as  some  young  couple  who,  on  their 
wedding- journey,  at  the  inn,  feel  shy  in  the 
presence  of  the  waiter.  He  turned  round  only 
when  the  waiter  had  left  us.  "  Well  —  so  we're 
alone  I " 


XXIII 

"On,  more  or  less."  I  fancy  my  smile  was 
pale.  "Not  absolutely.  We  shouldn't  like 
that !  "  I  went  on. 

"  No  —  I  suppose  we  shouldn't.  Of  course  we 
have  the  others." 

"  We  have  the  others  —  we  have  indeed  the 
others,"  I  concurred. 

"  Yet  even  though  we  have  them,"  he  re- 
turned, still  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and 
planted  there  in  front  of  me,  "they  don't  much 
count,  do  they?" 

I  made  the  best  of  it,  but  I  felt  wan.  "It 
depends  on  what  you  call  '  much ' !  " 

"  Yes  "  —  with  all  accommodation  —  "  every- 
thing depends !  "  On  this,  however,  he  faced 
to  the  window  again  and  presently  reached  it 
with  his  vague,  restless,  cogitating  step.  He 
remained  there  awhile,  with  his  forehead  against 
the  glass,  in  contemplation  of  the  stupid  shrubs 
I  knew  and  the  dull  things  of  November.  I 
197 


198  THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW 

had  always  my  hypocrisy  of  "work,"  behind 
which,  now,  I  gained  the  sofa.  Steadying  my- 
self with  it  there  as  I  had  repeatedly  done  at 
those  moments  of  torment  that  I  have  described 
as  the  moments  of  my  knowing  the  children 
to  be  given  to  something  from  which  I  was 
barred,  I  sufficiently  obeyed  my  habit  of  being 
prepared  for  the  worst.  But  an  extraordinary 
impression  dropped  on  me  as  I  extracted  a  mean- 
ing from  the  boy's  embarrassed  back  —  none 
other  than  the  impression  that  I  was  not  barred 
now.  This  inference  grew  in  a  few  minutes 
to  sharp  intensity  and  seemed  bound  up  with 
the  direct  perception  that  it  was  positively  he 
who  was.  The  frames  and  squares  of  the  great 
window  were  a  kind  of  image,  for  him,  of  a 
kind  of  failure.  I  felt  that  I  saw  him,  at  any 
rate,  shut  in  or  shut  out.  He  was  admirable, 
but  not  comfortable :  I  took  it  in  with  a  throb 
of  hope.  Wasn't  he  looking,  through  the 
haunted  pane,  for  something  he  couldn't  see  ? 
—  and  wasn't  it  the  first  time  in  the  whole 
business  that  he  had  known  such  a  lapse?  The 
first,  the  very  first :  I  found  it  a  splendid  por- 
tent. It  made  him  anxious,  though  he  watched 
himself;  he  had  been  anxious  all  day  and,  even 
while  in  his  usual  sweet  little  manner  he  sat 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW        199 

at  table,  had  needed  all  his  small  strange  genius 
to  give  it  a  gloss.  When  he  at  last  turned 
round  to  meet  me,  it  was  almost  as  if  this 
genius  had  succumbed.  "  Well,  I  think  I'm 
glad  Ely  agrees  with  me  ! " 

"  You  would  certainly  seem  to  have  seen,  these 
twenty-four  hours,  a  good  deal  more  of  it  than 
for  some  time  before.  I  hope,"  I  went  on 
bravely,  "that  you've  been  enjoying  yourself." 

"  Oh,  yes,  I've  been  ever  so  far ;  all  round 
about  —  miles  and  miles  away.  I've  never  been 
so  free." 

He  had  really  a  manner  of  his  own,  and  I 
could  only  try  to  keep  up  with  him.  "  Well,  do 
you  like  it  ?  " 

He  stood  there  smiling ;  then  at  last  he  put 
into  two  words — "Do  you?"  —  more  discrimi- 
nation than  I  had  ever  heard  two  words  contain. 
Before  I  had  time  to  deal  with  that,  however,  he 
continued  as  if  with  the  sense  that  this  was  an 
impertinence  to  be  softened.  "  Nothing  could 
be  more  charming  than  the  way  you  take  it,  for 
of  course  if  we're  alone  together  now  it's  you 
that  are  alone  most.  But  I  hope,"  he  threw  in, 
"  you  don't  particularly  mind  !  " 

"Having  to  do  with  you?"  I  asked.  "My 
dear  child,  how  can  I  help  minding?  Though 


200  THE  TURN   OF  THE   SCREW 

I've  renounced  all  claim  to  your  company, — 
you're  so  beyond  me,  —  I  at  least  greatly  enjoy 
it.  What  else  should  I  stay  on  for?" 

He  looked  at  me  more  directly,  and  the  expres- 
sion of  his  face,  graver  now,  struck  me  as  the 
most  beautiful  I  had  ever  found  in  it.  "  You 
stay  on  just  for  that?" 

"  Certainly.  I  stay  on  as  your  friend  and  from 
the  tremendous  interest  I  take  in  you  till  some- 
thing can  be  done  for  you  that  may  be  more 
worth  your  while.  That  needn't  surprise  you." 
My  voice  trembled  so  that  I  felt  it  impossible  to 
suppress  the  shake.  "  Don't  you  remember  how 
I  told  you,  when  I  came  and  sat  on  your  bed  the 
night  of  the  storm,  that  there  was  nothing  in  the 
world  I  wouldn't  do  for  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,  yes  !  "  He,  on  his  side,  more  and  more 
visibly  nervous,  had  a  tone  to  master ;  but  he  was 
so  much  more  successful  than  I  that,  laughing 
out  through  his  gravity,  he  could  pretend  we 
were  pleasantly  jesting.  "Only  that,  I  think, 
was  to  get  me  to  do  something  for  you!" 

"  It  was  partly  to  get  you  to  do  something,"  I 
conceded.  "  But,  you  know,  you  didn't  do  it." 

"  Oh,  yes,"  he  said  with  the  brightest  superfi- 
cial eagerness,  "  you  wanted  me  to  tell  you  some- 
thing." 


THE  TURN   OF  THE  SCREW  201 

"That's  it.  Out,  straight  out.  What  you 
have  on  your  mind,  you  know." 

"Ah,  then,  is  that  what  you've  stayed  over 
for?" 

He  spoke  with  a  gaiety  through  which  I  could 
still  catch  the  finest  little  quiver  of  resentful 
passion ;  but  I  can't  begin  to  express  the  effect 
upon  me  of  an  implication  of  surrender  even  so 
faint.  It  was  as  if  what  I  had  yearned  for  had 
come  at  last  only  to  astonish  me.  "  Well,  yes  — 
I  may  as  well  make  a  clean  breast  of  it.  It  was 
precisely  for  that." 

He  waited  so  long  that  I  supposed  it  for  the 
purpose  of  repudiating  the  assumption  on  which 
my  action  had  been  founded ;  but  what  he  finally 
said  was  :  "  Do  you  mean  now  —  here  ?  " 

"There  couldn't  be  a  better  place  or  time." 
He  looked  round  him  uneasily,  and  I  had  the 
rare  —  oh,  the  queer !  —  impression  of  the  very 
first  symptom  I  had  seen  in  him  of  the  approach 
of  immediate  fear.  It  was  as  if  he  were  sud- 
denly afraid  of  me  —  which  struck  me  indeed  as 
perhaps  the  best  thing  to  make  him.  Yet  in  the 
very  pang  of  the  effort  I  felt  it  vain  to  try  stern- 
ness, and  I  heard  myself  the  next  instant  so 
gentle  as  to  be  almost  grotesque.  "  You  want  so 
to  go  out  again  ?  " 


202  THE  TURN   OF  THE   SCREW 

"  Awfully !  "  He  smiled  at  me  heroically,  and 
the  touching  little  bravery  of  it  was  enhanced  by 
his  actually  flushing  with  pain.  He  had  picked 
up  his  hat,  which  he  had  brought  in,  and  stood 
twirling  it  in  a  way  that  gave  me,  even  as  I  was 
just  nearly  reaching  port,  a  perverse  horror  of 
what  I  was  doing.  To  do  it  in  any  way  was 
an  act  of  violence,  for  what  did  it  consist  of  but 
the  obtrusion  of  the  idea  of  grossness  and  guilt 
on  a  small  helpless  creature  who  had  been  for 
me  a  revelation  of  the  possibilities  of  beautiful 
intercourse  ?  Wasn't  it  base  to  create  for  a  being 
so  exquisite  a  mere  alien  awkwardness  ?  I  sup- 
pose I  now  read  into  our  situation  a  clearness 
it  couldn't  have  had  at  the  time,  for  I  seem 
to  see  our  poor  eyes  already  lighted  with  some 
spark  of  a  prevision  of  the  anguish  that  was  to 
come.  So  we  circled  about,  with  terrors  and 
scruples,  like  fighters  not  daring  to  close.  But 
it  was  for  each  other  we  feared !  That  kept  us 
a  little  longer  suspended  and  unbruised.  "I'll 
tell  you  everything,"  Miles  said  —  "I  mean  I'll 
tell  you  anything  you  like.  You'll  stay  on  with 
me,  and  we  shall  both  be  all  right  and  I  will  tell 
you  —  I  will.  But  not  now." 

"Why  not  now?" 

My  insistence  turned  him  from  me  and  kept 


THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW  203 

him  once  more  at  his  window  in  a  silence  during 
which,  between  us,  you  might  have  heard  a  pin 
drop.  Then  he  was  before  me  again  with  the  air 
of  a  person  for  whom,  outside,  someone  who  had 
frankly  to  be  reckoned  with  was  waiting.  "I 
have  to  see  Luke." 

I  had  not  yet  reduced  him  to  quite  so  vulgar 
a  lie,  and  I  felt  proportionately  ashamed.  But, 
horrible  as  it  was,  his  lies  made  up  my  truth.  I 
achieved  thoughtfully  a  few  loops  of  my  knitting. 
"Well,  then,  go  to  Luke,  and  I'll  wait  for  what 
you  promise.  Only,  in  return  for  that,  satisfy, 
before  you  leave  me,  one  very  much  smaller 
request." 

He  looked  as  if  he  felt  he  had  succeeded 
enough  to  be  able  still  a  little  to  bargain. 
"Very  much  smaller ?" 

"  Yes,  a  mere  fraction  of  the  whole.  Tell  me  " 
—  oh,  my  work  preoccupied  me,  and  I  was  off- 
hand !  —  "  if,  yesterday  afternoon,  from  the  table 
in  the  hall,  you  took,  you  know,  my  letter." 


XXIV 

MY  sense  of  how  he  received  this  suffered  for  a 
minute  from  something  that  I  can  describe  only 
as  a  fierce  split  of  my  attention  —  a  stroke  that  at 
first,  as  I  sprang  straight  up,  reduced  me  to  the 
mere  blind  movement  of  getting  hold  of  him, 
drawing  him  close,  and,  while  I  just  fell  for  sup- 
port against  the  nearest  piece  of  furniture,  in- 
stinctively keeping,  him  with  his  back  to  the  win- 
dow. The  appearance  was  full  upon  us  that  I 
had  already  had  to  deal  with  here  :  Peter  Quint 
had  come  into  view  like  a  sentinel  before  a  prison. 
The  next  thing  I  saw  was  that,  from  outside,  he 
had  reached  the  window,  and  then  I  knew  that, 
close  to  the  glass  and  glaring  in  through  it,  he 
offered  once  more  to  the  room  his  white  face  of 
damnation.  It  represents  but  grossly  what  took 
place  within  me  at  the  sight  to  say  that  on  the 
second  my  decision  was  made;  yet  I  believe  that 
no  woman  so  overwhelmed  ever  in  so  short  a  time 
recovered  her  grasp  of  the  act.  It  came  to  me  in 

204 


THE   TURN  OP  THE   SCREW  205 

the  very  horror  of  the  immediate  presence  that 
the  act  would  be,  seeing  and  facing  what  I  saw 
and  faced,  to  keep  the  boy  himself  unaware.  The 
inspiration  —  I  can  call  it  by  no  other  name — was 
that  I  felt  how  voluntarily,  how  transcendently, 
I  might.  It  was  like  fighting  with  a  demon  for  a 
human  soul,  and  when  I  had  fairly  so  appraised 
it  I  saw  how  the  human  soul  —  held  out,  in  the 
tremor  of  my  hands,  at  arm's  length  —  had  a  per- 
fect dew  of  sweat  on  a  lovely  childish  forehead. 
The  face  that  was  close  to  mine  was  as  white  as 
the  face  against  the  glass,  and  out  of  it  presently 
came  a  sound,  not  low  nor  weak,  but  as  if  from 
much  further  away,  that  I  drank  like  a  waft  of 
fragrance. 

"Yes  — I  took  it." 

At  this,  with  a  moan  of  joy,  I  enfolded,  I  drew 
him  close  ;  and  while  I  held  him  to  my  breast, 
where  I  could  feel  in  the  sudden  fever  of  his  little 
body  the  tremendous  pulse  of  his  little  heart,  I 
kept  my  eyes  on  the  thing  at  the  window  and  saw 
it  move  and  shift  its  posture.  I  have  likened  it 
to  a  sentinel,  but  its  slow  wheel,  for  a  moment, 
was  rather  the  prowl  of  a  baffled  beast.  My 
present  quickened  courage,  however,  was  such 
that,  not  too  much  to  let  it  through,  I  had  to 
shade,  as  it  were,  my  flame.  Meanwhile  the 


206  THE  TURN   OF  THE   SCREW 

glare  of  the  face  was  again  at  the  window,  the 
scoundrel  fixed  as  if  to  watch  and  wait.  It  was 
the  very  confidence  that  I  might  now  defy  him, 
as  well  as  the  positive  certitude,  by  this  time,  of 
the  child's  unconsciousness,  that  made  me  go  on. 
"  What  did  you  take  it  for  ?  " 

"To  see  what  you  said  about  me." 

"  You  opened  the  letter  ?  " 

"I  opened  it." 

My  eyes  were  now,  as  I  held  him  off  a  little 
again,  on  Miles's  own  face,  in  which  the  collapse 
of  mockery  showed  me  how  complete  was  the 
ravage  of  uneasiness.  What  was  prodigious  was 
that  at  last,  by  my  success,  his  sense  was  sealed 
and  his  communication  stopped:  he  knew  that 
he  was  in  presence,  but  knew  not  of  what,  and 
knew  still  less  that  I  also  was  and  that  I  did 
know.  And  what  did  this  strain  of  trouble  mat- 
ter when  my  eyes  went  back  to  the  window  only 
to  see  that  the  air  was  clear  again  and  —  by  my 
personal  triumph  —  the  influence  quenched  ? 
There  was  nothing  there.  I  felt  that  the  cause 
was  mine  and  that  I  should  surely  get  all.  "  And 
you  found  nothing  1  "  —  I  let  my  elation  out. 

He  gave  the  most  mournful,  thoughtful  little 
headshake.  "Nothing." 

"  Nothing,  nothing  I  "  I  almost  shouted  in  my 

joy- 


THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  207 

"Nothing,  nothing,"  he  sadly  repeated. 

I  kissed  his  forehead  ;  it  was  drenched.  "  So 
what  have  you  done  with  it  ?  " 

"I've  burnt  it." 

"  Burnt  it  ?  "  It  was  now  or  never.  "  Is  that 
what  you  did  at  school  ?  " 

Oh,  what  this  brought  up  !      "  At  school  ?  " 

" Did  you  take  letters?  —  or  other  things ?  " 

"  Other  things  ? "  He  appeared  now  to  be 
thinking  of  something  far  off  and  that  reached 
him  only  through  the  pressure  of  his  anxiety. 
Yet  it  did  reach  him.  "Did  I  steal?" 

I  felt  myself  redden  to  the  roots  of  my  hair  as 
well  as  wonder  if  it  were  more  strange  to  put  to 
a  gentleman  such  a  question  or  to  see  him  take  it 
with  allowances  that  gave  the  very  distance  of 
his  fall  in  the  world.  "  Was  it  for  that  you 
mightn't  go  back?" 

The  only  thing  he  felt  was  rather  a  dreary 
little  surprise.  "  Did  you  know  I  mightn't  go 
back?" 

"I  know  everything." 

He  gave  me  at  this  the  longest  and  strangest 
look.  "Everything?" 

"  Everything.  Therefore  did  you ?  "  But 

I  couldn't  say  it  again. 

Miles  could,  very  simply.  "No.  I  didn't 
steal." 


208  THE   TURN  OF  THE  SCREW 

My  face  must  have  shown  him  I  believed  him 
utterly;  yet  my  hands  —  but  it  was  for  pure  ten- 
derness —  shook  him  as  if  to  ask  him  why,  if  it 
was  all  for  nothing,  he  had  condemned  me  to 
months  of  torment.  "  What  then  did  you 
do?" 

He  looked  in  vague  pain  all  round  the  top  of 
the  room  and  drew  his  breath,  two  or  three  times 
over,  as  if  with  difficulty.  He  might  have  been 
standing  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea  and  raising  his 
eyes  to  some  faint  green  twilight.  "Well — I 
said  things." 

"Only  that?" 

"  They  thought  it  was  enough  !  " 

"  To  turn  you  out  for  ?  " 

Never,  truly,  had  a  person  "  turned  out "  shown 
so  little  to  explain  it  as  this  little  person  !  He 
appeared  to  weigh  my  question,  but  in  a  manner 
quite  detached  and  almost  helpless.  "  Well,  I 
suppose  I  oughtn't." 

"  But  to  whom  did  you  say  them  ?  " 

He  evidently  tried  to  remember,  but  it  dropped 
—  he  had  lost  it.  "  I  don't  know  !  " 

He  almost  smiled  at  me  in  the  desolation  of  his 
surrender,  which  was  indeed  practically,  by  this 
time,  so  complete  that  I  ought  to  have  left  it  there. 
But  I  was  infatuated  —  I  was  blind  with  victory, 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  SCREW  209 

though  even  then  the  very  effect  that  was  to  have 
brought  him  so  much  nearer  was  already  that  of 
added  separation.  "  Was  it  to  everyone  ?  "  I 
asked. 

"  No  ;  it  was  only  to "    But  he  gave  a  sick 

little  headshake.  "  I  don't  remember  their  names." 
"  Were  they  then  so  many  ?  " 
"  No  —  only  a  few.  Those  I  liked." 
Those  he  liked  ?  I  seemed  to  float  not  into 
clearness,  but  into  a  darker  obscure,  and  within  a 
minute  there  had  come  to  me  out  of  my  very  pity 
the  appalling  alarm  of  his  being  perhaps  innocent. 
It  was  for  the  instant  confounding  and  bottom- 
less, for  if  he  were  innocent,  what  then  on  earth 
was  I?  Paralysed,  while  it  lasted,  by  the  mere 
brush  of  the  question,  I  let  him  go  a  little,  so  that, 
with  a  deep-drawn  sigh,  he  turned  away  from  me 
again;  which,  as  he  faced  toward  the  clear  win- 
dow, I  suffered,  feeling  that  I  had  nothing  now 
there  to  keep  him  from.  "  And  did  they  repeat 
what  you  said  ?  "  I  went  on  after  a  moment. 

He  was  soon  at  some  distance  from  me,  still 
breathing  hard  and  again  with  the  air,  though  now 
without  anger  for  it,  of  being  confined  against  his 
will.  Once  more,  as  he  had  done  before,  he  looked 
up  at  the  dim  day  as  if,  of  what  had  hitherto  sus- 
tained him,  nothing  was  left  but  an  unspeakable 


210  THE  TUKN   OF  THE  SCREW 

anxiety.  "  Oh,  yes,"  he  nevertheless  replied  — 
"  they  must  have  repeated  them.  To  those  they 
liked,"  he  added. 

There  was,  somehow,  less  of  it  than  I  had  ex- 
pected; but  I  turned  it  over.  "  And  these  things 
came  round ?  " 

"  To  the  masters  ?  Oh,  yes  ! "  he  answered  very 
simply.  "  But  I  didn't  know  they'd  tell." 

"  The  masters  ?  They  didn't  —  they've  never 
told.  That's  why  I  ask  you." 

He  turned  to  me  again  his  little  beautiful 
fevered  face.  "Yes,  it  was  too  bad." 

"Too  bad?" 

"  What  I  suppose  I  sometimes  said.  To  write 
home." 

I  can't  name  the  exquisite  pathos  of  the  con- 
tradiction given  to  such  a  speech  by  such  a 
speaker ;  I  only  know  that  the  next  instant  I 
heard  myself  throw  off  with  homely  force : 
"  Stuff  and  nonsense  !  "  But  the  next  after  that 
I  must  have  sounded  stern  enough.  "  What  were 
these  things  ?  " 

My  sternness  was  all  for  his  judge,  his  execu- 
tioner ;  yet  it  made  him  avert  himself  again,  and 
that  movement  made  me,  with  a  single  bound 
and  an  irrepressible  cry,  spring  straight  upon 
him.  For  there  again,  against  the  glass,  as  if 


THE   TURN   OF   THE   SCREW  211 

to  blight  his  confession  and  stay  his  answer, 
was  the  hideous  author  of  our  woe  —  the  white 
face  of  damnation.  I  felt  a  sick  swim  at  the 
drop  of  my  victory  and  all  the  return  of  my 
battle,  so  that  the  wildness  of  my  veritable  leap 
only  served  as  a  great  betrayal.  I  saw  him, 
from  the  midst  of  my  act,  meet  it  with  a  divina- 
tion, and  on  the  perception  that  even  now  he 
only  guessed,  and  that  the  window  was  still  to 
his  own  eyes  free,  I  let  the  impulse  flame  up  to 
convert  the  climax  of  his  dismay  into  the  very 
proof  of  his  liberation.  "No  more,  no  more,  no 
more  !  "  I  shrieked,  as  I  tried  to  press  him  against 
me,  to  my  visitant. 

"  Is  she  here  f "  Miles  panted  as  he  caught 
with  his  sealed  eyes  the  direction  of  my  words. 
Then  as  his  strange  "  she "  staggered  me  and, 
with  a  gasp,  I  echoed  it,  "  Miss  Jessel,  Miss 
Jessel ! "  he  with  a  sudden  fury  gave  me 
back. 

I  seized,  stupefied,  his  supposition  —  some  se- 
quel to  what  we  had  done  to  Flora,  but  this 
made  me  only  want  to  show  him  that  it  was 
better  still  than  that.  "  It's  not  Miss  Jessel ! 
But  it's  at  the  window  —  straight  before  us. 
It's  there  —  the  coward  horror,  there  for  the  last 
time  !  " 


212  THE  TURN   OF   THE  SCREW 

At  this,  after  a  second  in  which  his  head  made 
the  movement  of  a  baffled  dog's  on  a  scent  and 
then  gave  a  frantic  little  shake  for  air  and  light, 
he  was  at  me  in  a  white  rage,  bewildered,  glar- 
ing vainly  over  the  place  and  missing  wholly, 
though  it  now,  to  my  sense,  filled  the  room  like 
the  taste  of  poison,  the  wide,  overwhelming  pres- 
ence. "It's  he? " 

I  was  so  determined  to  have  all  my  proof  that 
I  flashed  into  ice  to  challenge  him.  "  Whom  do 
you  mean  by  *  he  '  ?  " 

"  Peter  Quint  —  you  devil !  "  HLs  face  gave 
again,  round  the  room,  its  convulsed  supplica- 
tion. "  Where  f  " 

They  are  in  my  ears  still,  his  supreme  sur- 
render of  the  name  and  his  tribute  to  my  devo- 
tion. "  What  does  he  matter  now,  my  own  ?  — 
what  will  he  ever  matter?  I  have  you,"  I 
launched  at  the  beast,  "  but  he  has  lost  you 
for  ever  !  "  Then,  for  the  demonstration  of  my 
work,  "  There,  there ! "  I  said  to  Miles. 

But  he  had  already  jerked  straight  round, 
stared,  glared  again,  and  seen  but  the  quiet  day. 
With  the  stroke  of  the  loss  I  was  so  proud  of 
he  uttered  the  cry  of  a  creature  hurled  over 
an  abyss,  and  the  grasp  with  which  I  recovered 
him  might  have  been  that  of  catching  him  in 


THE  TUKN  OF  THE  SCEEW        213 

his  fall.  I  caught  him,  yes,  I  held  him  —  it  may 
be  imagined  with  what  a  passion ;  but  at  the 
end  of  a  minute  I  began  to  feel  what  it  truly 
was  that  I  held.  We  were  alone  with  the  quiet 
day,  and  his  little  heart,  dispossessed,  had 
stopped. 


COVEKING  END 


I 

COVEEING  END 


AT  the  foot  of  the  staircase  he  waited  and  lis- 
tened, thinking  he  had  heard  her  call  to  him 
from  the  gallery,  high  aloft  but  out  of  view,  to 
which  he  had  allowed  her  independent  access  and 
whence  indeed,  on  her  first  going  up,  the  sound 
of  her  appreciation  had  reached  him  in  rapid 
movements,  evident  rushes  and  dashes,  and  in 
droll,  charming  cries  that  echoed  through  the 
place.  He  had  afterwards,  expectant  and  rest- 
less, been,  for  another  look,  to  the  house-door, 
and  then  had  fidgeted  back  into  the  hall,  where 
her  voice  again  caught  him.  It  was  many  a  day 
since  such  a  voice  had  sounded  in  those  empty 
chambers,  and  never  perhaps,  in  all  the  years, 
for  poor  Chivers,  had  any  voice  at  all  launched 
a  note  so  friendly  and  so  free. 

"  Oh,  no,  mum,  there  ain't  no  one  whatever 
come  yet.  It's  quite  all  right,  mum,  —  you  can 
please  yourself !  "  If  he  left  her  to  range,  all 
217 


218  COVERING   END 

his  pensive  little  economy  seemed  to  say,  wasn't 
it  just  his  poor  pickings  ?  He  quitted  the'  stairs, 
but  stopped  again,  with  his  hand  to  his  ear,  as 
he  heard  her  once  more  appeal  to  him.  "  Lots 

of  lovely ?     Lovely  what,  mum  ?     Little  ups 

and  downs  ?  "  he  quavered  aloft.  "  Oh,  as  you 
say,  mum  :  as  many  as  in  a  poor  man's  life  I " 
She  was  clearly  disposed,  as  she  roamed  in  de- 
light from  point  to  point,  to  continue  to  talk, 
and,  with  his  better  ear  and  his  scooped  hand,  he 
continued  to  listen  hard.  " '  Dear  little  crooked 
steps '  ?  Yes,  mum  ;  please  mind  'em,  mum : 
they  be  cruel  in  the  dark  corners  ! "  She  ap- 
peared to  take  another  of  her  light  scampers,  the 
sign  of  a  fresh  discovery  and  a  fresh  response ; 
at  which  he  felt  his  heart  warm  with  the  success 
of  a  trust  of  her  that  might  after  all  have  been 
rash.  Once  more  her  voice  reached  him  and 
once  more  he  gossiped  back.  "  Coming  up  too  ? 
Not  if  you'll  kindly  indulge  me,  mum  —  I  must 
be  where  I  can  watch  the  bell.  It  takes  watch- 
ing as  well  as  hearing !  "  —  he  dropped,  as  he 
resumed  his  round,  to  a  murmur  of  great  patience. 
This  was  taken  up  the  next  moment  by  the  husky 
plaint  of  the  signal  itself,  which  seemed  to  con- 
fess equally  to  short  wind  and  creaking  joints. 
It  moved,  however,  distinguishably,  and  its  mo- 


COVERING   END  219 

tion  made  him  start  much  more  as  if  he  had  been 
guilty  of  sleeping  at  his  post  than  as  if  he  had 
waited  half  the  day.  "  Mercy,  if  I  didn't  watch 

!  "     He  shuffled  across  the  wide  stone-paved 

hall  and,  losing  himself  beneath  the  great  arch 
of  the  short  passage  to  the  entrance-front,  has- 
tened to  admit  his  new  visitor.  He  gives  us 
thereby  the  use  of  his  momentary  absence  for  a 
look  at  the  place  he  has  left. 

This  is  the  central  hall,  high  and  square,  brown 
and  grey,  nagged  beneath  and  timbered  above, 
of  an  old  English  country-house ;  an  apartment 
in  which  a  single  survey  is  a  perception  of  long 
and  lucky  continuities.  It  would  have  been  diffi- 
cult to  find  elsewhere  anything  at  once  so  old  and 
so  actual,  anything  that  had  plainly  come  so  far, 
far  down  without,  at  any  moment  of  the  endless 
journey,  losing  its  way.  To  stand  there  and  look 
round  was  to  wonder  a  good  deal  —  yet  without 
arriving  at  an  answer  —  whether  it  had  been  most 
neglected  or  most  cherished ;  there  was  such 
resignation  in  its  long  survival  and  yet  such 
bravery  in  its  high  polish.  If  it  had  never  been 
spoiled,  this  was  partly,  no  doubt,  because  it  had 
been,  for  a  century,  given  up ;  but  what  it  had 
been  given  up  to  was,  after  all,  homely  and  fa- 
miliar use.  It  had  in  it  at  the  present  moment 


220  COVERING  END 

indeed  much  of  the  chill  of  fallen  fortunes ;  but 
there  was  no  concession  in  its  humility  and  no 
hypocrisy  in  its  welcome.  It  was  magnificent 
and  shabby,  and  the  eyes  of  the  dozen  dark  old 
portraits  seemed,  in  their  eternal  attention,  to 
count  the  cracks  in  the  pavement,  the  rents  in 
the  seats  of  the  chairs,  and  the  missing  tones  in 
the  Flemish  tapestry.  Above  the  tapestry,  which, 
in  its  turn,  was  above  the  high  oak  wainscot, 
most  of  these  stiff  images  —  on  the  side  on  which 
it  principally  reigned  —  were  placed;  and  they 
held  up  their  heads  to  assure  all  comers  that  a 
tone  or  two  was  all  that  was  missing,  and  that 
they  had  never  waked  up  in  winter  dawns  to  any 
glimmer  of  bereavement,  in  the  long  night,  of 
any  relic  or  any  feature.  Such  as  it  was,  the  com- 
pany was  all  there ;  every  inch  of  old  oak,  every 
yard  of  old  arras,  every  object  of  ornament  or  of 
use  to  which  these  surfaces  formed  so  rare  a  back- 
ground. If  the  watchers  on  the  walls  had  ever 
found  a  gap  in  their  own  rank,  the  ancient  roof, 
of  a  certainty,  would  have  been  shaken  by  their 
collective  gasp.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  rich 
and  firm  —  it  had  almost  the  dignity  of  the  vault 
of  a  church.  On  this  Saturday  afternoon  in 
August,  a  hot,  still  day,  such  of  the  casements 
as  freely  worked  in  the  discoloured  glass  of  the 


COVERING   END  221 

windows  stood  open  in  one  quarter  to  a  terrace 
that  overlooked  a  park  and  in  another  to  a  won- 
derful old  empty  court  that  communicated  with 
a  wonderful  old  empty  garden.  The  staircase, 
wide  and  straight,  mounted,  full  in  sight,  to  a 
landing  that  was  half-way  up ;  and  on  the  right, 
as  you  faced  this  staircase,  a  door  opened  out  of 
the  brown  panelling  into  a  glimpse  of  a  little 
morning-room,  where,  in  a  slanted,  gilded  light, 
there  was  brownness  too,  mixed  with  notes  of  old 
yellow.  On  the  left,  toward  court  and  garden, 
another  door  stood  open  to  the  warm  air.  Still 
as  you  faced  the  staircase  you  had  at  your  right, 
between  that  monument  and  the  morning-room, 
the  arch  through  which  Chivers  had  disappeared. 
His  reappearance  interrupts  and  yet  in  a  man- 
ner, after  all,  quickens  our  intense  impression ; 
Chivers  on  the  spot,  and  in  this  severe  but  spa- 
cious setting,  was  so  perfect  an  image  of  im- 
memorial domesticity.  It  would  have  been 
impossible  perhaps,  however,  either  to  tell  his 
age  or  to  name  his  use :  he  was  of  the  age  of 
all  the  history  that  lurked  in  all  the  corners 
and  of  any  use  whatever  you  might  be  so  good 
as  still  to  find  for  him.  Considerably  shrunken 
and  completely  silvered,  he  had  perpetual  agree- 
ment in  the  droop  of  his  kind  white  head  and 


222  COVERING  END 

perpetual  inquiry  in  the  jerk  of  the  idle  old 
hands  now  almost  covered  by  the  sleeves  of 
the  black  dress-coat  which,  twenty  years  before, 
must  have  been  by  a  century  or  two  the  newest 
thing  in  the  house  and  into  which  his  years 
appeared  to  have  declined  very  much  as  a 
shrunken  family  moves  into  a  part  of  its  habi- 
tation. This  attire  was  completed  by  a  white 
necktie  that,  in  honour  of  the  day,  he  himself 
had  this  morning  done  up.  The  humility  he 
betrayed  and  the  oddity  he  concealed  were  alike 
brought  out  by  his  juxtaposition  with  the  gen- 
tleman he  had  admitted. 

To  admit  Mr.  Prodmore  was  anywhere  and  at 
any  time,  as  you  would  immediately  have  recog- 
nised, an  immense  admission.  He  was  a  per- 
sonage of  great  presence  and  weight,  with  a 
large  smooth  face  in  which  a  small  sharp  mean- 
ing was  planted  like  a  single  pin  in  the  tight 
red  toilet-cushion  of  a  guest-chamber.  He  wore 
a  blue  frock-coat  and  a  stiff  white  waistcoat 
and  a  high  white  hat  that  he  kept  on  his  head 
with  a  kind  of  protesting  cock,  while  in  his 
buttonhole  nestled  a  bold  prize  plant  on  which 
he  occasionally  lowered  a  proprietary  eye  that 
seemed  to  remind  it  of  its  being  born  to  a  pub- 
lic career.  Mr.  Prodmore's  appearance  had  evi- 


COVERING  END  223 

dently  been  thought  out,  but  it  might  have 
struck  you  that  the  old  portraits  took  it  in 
with  a  sterner  stare,  with  a  fixedness  indeed  in 
which  a  visitor  more  sensitive  would  have  read 
a  consciousness  of  his  remaining,  in  their  pres- 
ence, so  jauntily,  so  vulgarly  covered.  He  had 
never  a  glance  for  them,  and  it  would  have  been 
easy  after  a  minute  to  see  that  this  was  an  old 
story  between  them.  Their  manner,  as  it  were, 
sensibly  increased  the  coolness.  This  coolness 
became  a  high  rigour  as  Mr.  Prodmore  encoun- 
tered, from  the  very  threshold,  a  disappointment. 

"  No  one  here  ?  "  he  indignantly  demanded. 

"I'm  sorry  to  say  no  one  has  come,  sir," 
Chivers  replied;  "but  I've  had  a  telegram  from 
Captain  Yule." 

Mr.  Prodmore's  apprehension  flared  out.  "Not 
to  say  he  ain't  coming?  " 

"He  was  to  take  the  2.20  from  Paddington; 
he  certainly  should  be  here ! "  The  old  man 
spoke  as  if  his  non-arrival  were  the  most  unac- 
countable thing  in  the  world,  especially  for  a 
poor  person  ever  respectful  of  the  mystery  of 
causes. 

"  He  should  have  been  here  this  hour  or  more. 
And  so  should  my  fly-away  daughter !  " 

Chivers   surrounded   this   description   of   Miss 


224  COVERING   END 

Prodmore  with  the  deep  discretion  of  silence, 
and  then,  after  a  moment,  evidently  reflected 
that  silence,  in  a  world  bestrewn  with  traps  to 
irreverence,  might  be  as  rash  as  speech.  "  Were 
they  coming  —  a  —  together,  sir  ?  " 

He  had  scarcely  mended  the  matter,  for  his 
visitor  gave  an  inconsequent  stare.  "Together? 
—  for  what  do  you  take  Miss  Prodmore  ?  "  This 
young  lady's  parent  glared  about  him  again  as 
if  to  alight  on  something  else  that  was  out  of 
place;  but  the  good  intentions  expressed  in  the 
attitude  of  every  object  might  presently  have 
been  presumed  to  soothe  his  irritation.  It  had 
at  any  rate  the  effect  of  bridging,  for  poor 
Chivers,  some  of  his  gaps.  "  It  is  in  a  sense 
true  that  their  '  coming  together,'  as  you  call  it, 
is  exactly  what  I've  made  my  plans  for  today : 
my  calculation  was  that  we  should  all  punctually 
converge  on  this  spot.  Attended  by  her  trusty 
maid,  Miss  Prodmore,  who  happens  to  be  on  a 
week's  visit  to  her  grandmother  at  Bellborough, 
was  to  take  the  1.40  from  that  place.  I  was  to 
drive  over  —  ten  miles  —  from  the  most  conven- 
ient of  my  seats.  Captain  Yule  "  —  the  speaker 
wound  up  his  statement  as  with  the  mention  of 
the  last  touch  in  a  masterpiece  of  his  own  sketch- 
ing —  "  was  finally  to  shake  off  for  a  few  hours 
the  peculiar  occupations  that  engage  him." 


COVERING   END  225 

The  old  man  listened  with  his  head  askance 
to  favour  his  good  ear,  but  his  visible  attention 
all  on  a  sad  spot  in  one  of  the  half-dozen  worn 
rugs.  "  They  must  be  peculiar,  sir,  when  a  gen- 
tleman comes  into  a  property  like  this  and  goes 
three  months  without  so  much  as  a  nat'ral 

curiosity !  I  don't  speak  of  anything  but 

what  is  nat'ral,  sir ;  but  there  have  been  people 
here " 

"  There  have  repeatedly  been  people  here  !  " 
Mr.  Prodmore  complacently  interrupted. 

"  As  you  say,  sir  —  to  be  shown  over.  With 
the  master  himself  never  shown !  "  Chivers  dis- 
mally commented. 

"  He  shall  be,  so  that  nobody  can  miss  him  !  " 
Mr.  Prodmore,  for  his  own  reassurance  as  well, 
hastened  to  retort. 

His  companion  risked  a  tiny  explanation.  "  It 
will  be  a  mercy  indeed  to  look  on  him ;  but  I 
meant  that  he  has  not  been  taken  round." 

"That's  what  I  meant  too.  Til  take  him  — 
round  and  round:  it's  exactly  what  I've  come 
for ! "  Mr.  Prodmore  rang  out ;  and  his  eyes 
made  the  lower  circuit  again,  looking  as  pleased 
as  such  a  pair  of  eyes  could  look  with  nobody 
as  yet  quite  good  enough  either  to  terrify  or  to 
tickle.  "  He  can't  fail  to  be  affected,  though 


226  COVERING  END 

he  has  been  up  to  his  neck  in  such  a  different 
class  of  thing." 

Chivers  clearly  wondered  awhile  what  class  of 
thing  it  could  be.  Then  he  expressed  a  timid 
hope.  "  In  nothing,  I  dare  say,  but  what's  right, 
sir ?" 

"  In  everything,"  Mr.  Prodmore  distinctly  in- 
formed him,  "  that's  wrong  !  But  here  he  is  !  " 
that  gentleman  added  with  elation  as  the  door- 
bell again  sounded.  Chivers,  under  the  double 
agitation  of  the  appeal  and  the  disclosure,  pro- 
ceeded to  the  front  as  fast  as  circumstances 
allowed ;  while  Mr.  Prodmore,  left  alone,  would 
have  been  observed  —  had  not  his  solitude  been 
so  bleak  —  to  recover  a  degree  of  cheerfulness. 
Cheerfulness  in  solitude  at  Covering  End  was 
certainly  not  irresistible,  but  particular  feelings 
and  reasons  had  pitched,  for  their  campaign, 
the  starched,  if  now  somewhat  ruffled,  tent  of 
his  large  white  waistcoat.  If  they  had  issued 
audibly  from  that  pavilion,  they  would  have 
represented  to  us  his  consciousness  of  the  rein- 
forcement he  might  bring  up  for  attack  should 
Captain  Yule  really  resist  the  house.  The  sound 
he  next  heard  from  the  front  caused  him  none 
the  less,  for  that  matter,  to  articulate  a  certain 
drop.  "  Only  Cora  ?  —  Well,"  he  added  in  a 


COVERING  END  227 

tone  somewhat  at  variance  with  his  "  only,"  "  he 
shan't,  at  any  rate,  resist  Tier  !  "  This  announce- 
ment would  have  quickened  a  spectator's  interest 
in  the  young  lady  whom  Chivers  now  introduced 
and  followed,  a  young  lady  who  straightway 
found  herself  the  subject  of  traditionary  disci- 
pline. "  I've  waited.  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

Cora  Prodmore,  who  had  a  great  deal  of  colour 
in  her  cheeks  and  a  great  deal  more  —  a  bold 
variety  of  kinds  —  in  the  extremely  high  pitch 
of  her  new,  smart  clothes,  meant,  on  the  whole, 
it  was  easy  to  see,  very  little,  and  met  this 
challenge  with  still  less  jshow  of  support  either 
from  the  sources  I  have  mentioned  or  from  any 
others.  A  dull,  fresh,  honest,  overdressed  dam- 
sel of  two-and-twenty,  she  was  too  much  out 
of  breath,  too  much  flurried  and  frightened,  to 
do  more  than  stammer :  "  Waited,  papa  ?  Oh, 
I'm  sorry !  " 

Her  regret  appeared  to  strike  her  father  still 
more  as  an  impertinence  than  as  a  vanity. 
"  Would  you  then,  if  I  had  not  had  patience 
for  you,  have  wished  not  to  find  me  ?  Why  the 
dickens  are  you  so  late  ?  " 

Agitated,  embarrassed,  the  girl  was  at  a  loss. 
"  I'll  tell  you,  papa  !  "  But  she  followed  up  her 
pledge  with  an  air  of  vacuity  and  then,  dropping 


228  COVERING   END 

into  the  nearest  seat,  simply  closed  her  eyes  to 
her  danger.  If  she  desired  relief,  she  had  caught 
at  the  one  way  to  get  it.  "I  feel  rather  faint. 
Could  I  have  some  tea  ?  " 

Mr.  Prodmore  considered  both  the  idea  and  his 
daughter's  substantial  form.  "Well,  as  I  shall 
expect  you  to  put  forth  all  your  powers  —  yes  !  " 
He  turned  to  Chivers.  "  Some  tea." 

The  old  man's  eyes  had  attached  themselves  to 
Miss  Prodmore's  symptoms  with  more  solicitude 
than  those  of  her  parent.  "  I  did  think  it  might 
be  required  !  "  Then  as  he  gained  the  door  of 
the  morning-room  :  "  I'll  lay  it  out  here." 

The  young  lady,  on  his  withdrawal,  recovered 
herself  sufficiently  to  rise  again.  "  It  was  my 
train,  papa  —  so  very  awfully  behind.  I  walked 
up,  you  know,  also,  from  the  station  —  there's 
such  a  lovely  footpath  across  the  park." 

"  You've  been  roaming  the  country  then 
alone  ?  "  Mr.  Prodmore  inquired. 

The  girl  protested  with  instant  eagerness 
against  any  such  picture.  "Oh,  dear  no,  not 
alone ! "  She  spoke,  absurdly,  as  if  she  had  had 
a  train  of  attendants  ;  but  it  was  an  instant  be- 
fore she  could  complete  the  assurance.  "There 
were  ever  so  many  people  about." 

"  Nothing   is   more   possible    than    that    there 


COVERING   END  229 

should  be  too  many !  "  said  her  father,  speaking 
as  for  his  personal  convenience,  but  presenting 
that  as  enough.  "  But  where,  among  them  all," 
he  demanded,  "  is  your  trusty  maid  ?  " 

Cora's  reply  made  up  in  promptitude  what  it 
lacked  in  felicity.  "I  didn't  bring  her."  She 
looked  at  the  old  portraits  as  if  to  appeal  to  them 
to  help  her  to  remember  why.  Apparently  in- 
deed they  gave  a  sign,  for  she  presently  went 
on:  "She  was  so  extremely  unwell." 

Mr.  Prodmore  met  this  with  reprobation. 
"Wasn't  she  to  understand  from  the  first  that 
we  don't  permit " 

"  Anything  of  that  sort  ?  "  —  the  girl  recalled 
it  at  least  as  a  familiar  law.  "  Oh,  yes,  papa  — 
I  thought  she  did." 

"But  she  doesn't?"  — Mr.  Prodmore  pressed 
the  point.  Poor  Cora,  at  a  loss  again,  appeared 
to  wonder  if  the  point  had  better  be  a  failure  of 
brain  or  of  propriety,  but  her  companion  con- 
tinued to  press.  "What  on  earth's  the  matter 
with  her  ?  " 

She  again  communed  with  their  silent  wit- 
nesses. "  I  really  don't  quite  know,  but  I  think 
that  at  Granny's  she  eats  too  much." 

"  I'll  soon  put  an  end  to  that !  "  Mr.  Prodmore 
returned  with  decision.  "  You  expect  then  to 


230  COVERING  END 

pursue  your  adventures  quite  into  the  night — to 
return  to  Bellborough  as  you  came  ?  " 

The  girl  had  by  this  time  begun  a  little  to  find 
her  feet.  "  Exactly  as  I  came,  papa  dear,  —  under 
the  protection  of  a  new  friend  I've  just  made,  a 
lady  whom  I  met  in  the  train  and  who  is  also 
going  back  by  the  6.19.  She  was,  like  myself,  on 
her  way  to  this  place,  and  I  expected  to  find  her 
here." 

Mr.  Prodmore  chilled  on  the  spot  any  such  ex- 
pectations. "  What  does  she  want  at  this  place?  " 

Cora  was  clearly  stronger  for  her  new  friend 
than  for  herself.  "She  wants  to  see  it." 

Mr.  Prodmore  reflected  on  this  complication. 
"Today?"  It  was  practically  presumptuous. 
"Today  won't  do." 

"  So  I  suggested,"  the  girl  declared.  "  But  do 
you  know  what  she  said  ?  " 

"How  should  I  know,"  he  coldly  demanded, 
"  what  a  nobody  says  ?  " 

But  on  this,  as  if  with  the  returning  taste  of 
a  new  strength,  his  daughter  could  categorically 
meet  him.  "  She's  not  a  nobody.  She's  an 
American." 

Mr.  Prodmore,  for  a  moment,  was  struck :  he 
embraced  the  place,  instinctively,  in  a  flash  of 
calculation.  "  An  American  ?  " 


COVERING   END  231 

"Yes,  and  she's  wild " 

He  knew  all  about  that.  "  Americans  mostly 
are  !  " 

"I  mean,"  said  Cora,  "to  see  this  place. 
'Wild'  was  what  she  herself  called  it — and  I 
think  she  also  said  she  was  'mad.'" 

"She  gave" — Mr.  Prodmore  reviewed  the 
affair  —  "a  fine  account  of  herself !  But  she 
won't  do." 

The  effect  of  her  new  acquaintance  on  his 
companion  had  been  such  that  she  could,  after 
an  instant,  react  against  this  sentence.  "  Well, 
when  I  told  her  that  this  particular  day  perhaps 
wouldn't,  she  said  it  would  just  have  to." 

"  Have  to  do  ?  "  Mr.  Prodmore  showed  again, 
through  a  chink,  his  speculative  eye.  "  For  what, 
then,  with  such  grand  airs  ?  " 

"Why,  I  suppose,  for  what  Americans  want." 

He  measured  the  quantity.  "  They  want 
everything." 

"  Then  I  wonder,"  said  Cora,  "  that  she  hasn't 
arrived." 

"  When  she  does  arrive,"  he  answered,  "  I'll 
tackle  her ;  and  I  shall  thank  you,  in  future,  not 
to  take  up,  in  trains,  with  indelicate  women  of 
whom  you  know  nothing." 

"Oh,    I   did  know   something,"  his   daughter 


232  COVERING   END 

pleaded ;  "  for  I  saw  her  yesterday  at  Bellbor- 
ough." 

Mr.  Prodmore  contested  even  this  freedom. 
"And  what  was  she  doing  at  Bellborough?" 

"  Staying  at  the  Blue  Dragon,  to  see  the  old 
abbey.  She  says  she  just  loves  old  abbeys.  It 
seems  to  be  the  same  feeling,"  the  girl  went  on, 
"that  brought  her  over,  today,  to  see  this  old 
house." 

"  She  '  just  loves '  old  houses  ?  Then  why  the 
deuce  didn't  she  accompany  you  properly,  since 
she  is  so  pushing,  to  the  door?" 

"Because  she  went  off  in  a  fly,"  Cora  ex- 
plained, "to  see,  first,  the  old  hospital.  She  just 
loves  old  hospitals.  She  asked  me  if  this  isn't  a 
show-house.  I  told  her  "  —  the  girl  was  anxious 
to  disclaim  responsibility  — "  that  I  hadn't  the 
least  idea." 

"It  is!"  Mr.  Prodmore  cried  almost  with  fe- 
rocity. "  I  wonder,  on  such  a  speech,  what  she 
thought  of  you!  " 

Miss  Prodmore  meditated  with  distinct  humble- 
ness. "  I  know.  She  told  me." 

He  had  looked  her  up  and  down.  "That 
you're  really  a  hopeless  frump  ?  " 

Cora,  oddly  enough,  seemed  almost  to  court 
this  description.  "That  I'm  not,  as  she  rather 
funnily  called  it,  a  show-girl." 


COVERING   END  233 

"Think  of  your  having  to  be  reminded  —  by 
the  very  strangers  you  pick  up,"  Mr.  Prodmore 
groaned,  "of  what  my  daughter  should  pre- 
eminently be  !  Your  friend,  all  the  same,"  he 
bethought  himself,  "is  evidently  loud." 

"  Well,  when  she  comes,"  the  girl  again  so  far 
agreed  as  to  reply,  "you'll  certainly  hear  her. 
But  don't  judge  her,  papa,  till  you  do.  She's 
tremendously  clever,"  she  risked  —  "there  seems 
to  be  nothing  she  doesn't  know." 

"And  there  seems  to  be  nothing  you  do! 
You're  not  tremendously  clever,"  Mr.  Prodmore 
pursued;  "so  you'll  permit  me  to  demand  of 
you  a  slight  effort  of  intelligence."  Then,  as 
for  the  benefit  of  the  listening  walls  themselves, 
he  struck  the  high  note.  "  I'm  expecting  Cap- 
tain Yule." 

Cora's  consciousness  blinked.  "  The  owner  of 
this  property  ?  " 

Her  father's  tone  showed  his  reserves.  "  That's 
what  it  depends  on  you  to  make  him  !  " 

"  On  me  ?  "  the  girl  gasped. 

"  He  came  into  it  three  months  ago  by  the 
death  of  his  great-uncle,  who  had  lived  to  ninety- 
three,  but  who,  having  quarrelled  mortally  with 
his  father,  had  always  refused  to  receive  either 
sire  or  son." 


234  COVERING  END 

Our  young  lady  bent  her  eyes  on  this  page 
of  family  history,  then  raised  them  but  dimly 
lighted.  "But  now,  at  least,  doesn't  he  live 
here?" 

"So  little,"  her  companion  replied,  "that  he 
comes  here  today  for  the  very  first  time.  I've 
some  business  to  discuss  with  him  that  can  best 
be  discussed  on  this  spot ;  and  it's  a  vital  part 
of  that  business  that  you  too  should  take  pains 
to  make  him  welcome." 

Miss  Prodmore  failed  to  ignite.  "  In  his  own 
house  ?  " 

"  That  it's  not  his  own  house  is  just  the  point 
I  seek  to  make  !  The  way  I  look  at  it  is  that 
it's  my  house  !  The  way  I  look  at  it  even,  my 
dear  "  —  in  his  demonstration  of  his  ways  of  look- 
ing Mr.  Prodmore  literally  expanded  —  "is  that 
it's  our  house.  The  whole  thing  is  mortgaged, 
as  it  stands,  for  every  penny  of  its  value ;  and 
I'm  in  the  pleasant  position  —  do  you  follow 
me  ?  "  he  trumpeted. 

Cora  jumped.     "Of  holding  the  mortgages?" 

He  caught  her  with  a  smile  of  approval  and 
indeed  of  surprise.  "  You  keep  up  with  me 
better  than  I  hoped.  I  hold  every  scrap  of 
paper,  and  it's  a  precious  collection." 

She    smothered,  perceptibly,   a   vague    female 


COVEEING   END  235 

sigh,  glancing  over  the  place  more  attentively 
than  she  had  yet  done.  "Do  you  mean  that 
you  can  come  down  on  him  ? " 

"  I  don't  need  to  '  come,'  my  dear  —  I  am 
'  down.'  This  is  down  !  "  —  and  the  iron  point 
of  Mr.  Prodmore's  stick  fairly  struck,  as  he 
rapped  it,  a  spark  from  the  cold  pavement.  "  I 
came  many  weeks  ago  —  commercially  speaking 
—  and  haven't  since  budged  from  the  place." 

The  girl  moved  a  little  about  the  hall,  then 
turned  with  a  spasm  of  courage.  "Are  you  going 
to  be  very  hard  ?  " 

If  she  read  the  eyes  with  which  he  met  her  she 
found  in  them,  in  spite  of  a  certain  accompanying 
show  of  pleasantry,  her  answer.  "Hard  with 


"No  —  that  doesn't  matter.  Hard  with  the 
Captain." 

Mr.  Prodmore  thought  an  instant.  " '  Hard  ' 
is  a  stupid,  shuffling  term.  What  do  you  mean 
by  it?" 

"Well,  I  don't  understand  business,"  Cora 
said ;  "  but  I  think  I  understand  you,  papa, 
enough  to  gather  that  you've  got,  as  usual,  a 
striking  advantage." 

"As  usual,  I  have  scored;  but  my  advantage 
won't  be  striking  perhaps  till  I  have  sent  the 


236  COVERING   END 

blow  home.  What  I  appeal  to  you,  as  a  father,  at 
present  to  do  "  —  he  continued  broadly  to  demon- 
strate —  "  is  to  nerve  my  arm.  I  look  to  you  to 
see  me  through." 

"  Through  what,  then  ?" 

"Through  this  most  important  transaction. 
Through  the  speculation  of  which  you've  been 
the  barely  dissimulated  subject.  I've  brought 
you  here  to  receive  an  impression,  and  I've 
brought  you,  even  more,  to  make  one." 

The  girl  turned  honestly  flat.  "  But  on  whom  ?  " 

"  On  me,  to  begin  with  —  by  not  being  a  fool. 
And  then,  Miss,  on  him." 

Erect,  but  as  if  paralysed,  she  had  the  air  of 
facing  the  worst.  "  On  Captain  Yule  ?  " 

"By  bringing  him  to  the  point." 

"  But,  father,"  she  asked  in  evident  anguish  — 
"  to  what  point  ?  " 

"  The  point  where  a  gentleman  has  to." 

Miss  Prodmore  faltered.  "  Go  down  on  his 
knees?" 

Her  father  considered.  "No  —  they  don't  do 
that  now." 

"What  do  they  do?" 

Mr.  Prodmore  carried  his  eyes  with  a  certain 
sustained  majesty  to  a  remote  point.  "  He  will 
know  himself." 


COVERING   END  237 

"  Oh,  no,  indeed,  he  won't,"  the  girl  cried ; 
"they  don't  ever!" 

"Then  the  sooner  they  learn  —  whoever  teaches 
'em !  —  the  better  :  the  better  I  mean  in  particu- 
lar," Mr.  Prodmore  added  with  an  intention  dis- 
cernibly  vicious,  "for  the  master  of  this  house. 
I'll  guarantee  that  he  shall  understand  that,"  he 
concluded,  "for  I  shall  do  my  part." 

She  looked  at  him  as  if  his  part  were  really  to 
be  hated.  "  But  how  on  earth,  sir,  can  I  ever  do 
mine  ?  To  begin  with,  you  know,  I've  never  even 
seen  him." 

Mr.  Prodmore  took  out  his  watch ;  then,  having 
consulted  it,  put  it  back  with  a  gesture  that 
seemed  to  dispose  at  the  same  time  and  in  the 
same  manner  of  the  objection.  "  You'll  see  him 
now — from  one  moment  to  the  other.  He's 
remarkably  handsome,  remarkably  young,  remark- 
ably ambitious,  and  remarkably  clever.  He  has 
one  of  the  best  and  oldest  names  in  this  part  of 
the  country  —  a  name  that,  far  and  wide  here, 
one  could  do  so  much  with  that  I'm  simply  indig- 
nant to  see  him  do  so  little.  I  propose,  my  dear, 
to  do  with  it  all  he  hasn't,  and  I  further  propose, 
to  that  end,  first  to  get  hold  of  it.  It's  you, 
Miss  Prodmore,  who  shall  take  it  out  of  the  fire." 

"  The  fire  ?  "—he  had  terrible  figures. 


238  COVERING   END 

"  Out  of  the  mud,  if  you  prefer.  You  must 
pick  it  up,  do  you  see?  My  plan  is,  in  short," 
Mr.  Prodmore  pursued,  "that  when  we've 
brushed  it  off  and  rubbed  it  down  a  bit,  blown 
away  the  dust  and  touched  up  the  rust,  my 
daughter  shall  gracefully  bear  it." 

She  could  only  oppose,  now,  a  stiff,  thick 
transparency  that  yielded  a  view  of  the  course 
in  her  own  veins,  after  all,  however,  mingled 
with  a  feebler  fluid,  of  the  passionate  blood  of 
the  Prodmores.  "  And  pray  is  it  also  Captain 
Yule's  plan?" 

Her  father's  face  warned  her  off  the  ground 
of  irony,  but  he  replied  without  violence.  "  His 
plans  have  not  yet  quite  matured.  But  nothing 
is  more  natural,"  he  added  with  an  ominous 
smile,  "  than  that  they  shall  do  so  on  the  sunny 
south  wall  of  Miss  Prodmore's  best  manner." 

Miss  Prodmore's  spirit  was  visibly  rising, 
and  a  note  that  might  have  meant  warning  for 
warning  sounded  in  the  laugh  produced  by  this 
sally.  "  You  speak  of  them,  papa,  as  if  they 
were  sour  little  plums  !  You  exaggerate,  I 
think,  the  warmth  of  Miss  Prodmore's  nature. 
It  has  always  been  thought  remarkably  cold." 

"  Then  you'll  be  so  good,  my  dear,  as  to  con- 
found —  it  mightn't  be  amiss  even  a  little  to 


COVERING  END  239 

scandalise  —  that  opinion.  I've  spent  twenty 
years  in  giving  you  what  your  poor  mother 
used  to  call  advantages,  and  they've  cost  me 
hundreds  and  hundreds  of  pounds.  It's  now 
time  that,  both  as  a  parent  and  as  a  man  of 
business,  I  should  get  my  money  back.  I 
couldn't  help  your  temper,"  Mr.  Prodmore  con- 
ceded, "  nor  your  taste,  nor  even  your  unfortu- 
nate resemblance  to  the  estimable,  but  far  from 
ornamental,  woman  who  brought  you  forth;  but 
I  paid  out  a  small  fortune  that  you  should  have, 
damn  you,  don't  you  know?  a  good  manner. 
You  never  show  it  to  me,  certainly ;  but  do  you 
mean  to  tell  me  that,  at  this  time  of  day  —  for 
other  persons  —  you  haven't  got  one?" 

This  pulled  our  young  lady  perceptibly  up ; 
there  was  a  directness  in  the  argument  that  was 
like  the  ache  of  old  pinches.  "  If  you  mean  by 
'  other  persons '  persons  who  are  particularly 
civil  —  well,  Captain  Yule  may  not  see  his  way 
to  be  one  of  them.  He  may  not  think  —  don't 
you  see  ?  —  that  I've  a  good  manner." 

"Do  your  duty,  Miss,  and  never  mind  what 
he  thinks ! "  Her  father's  conception  of  her 
duty  momentarily  sharpened.  "  Don't  look  at 
him  like  a  sick  turkey,  and  he'll  be  sure  to 
think  right." 


240  COVERING  E]STD 

The  colour  that  sprang  into  Cora's  face  at 
this  rude  comparison  was  such,  unfortunately, 
as  perhaps  a  little  to  justify  it.  Yet  she  re- 
tained, in  spite  of  her  emotion,  some  remnant 
of  presence  of  mind.  "I  remember  your  saying 
once,  some  time  ago,  that  that  was  just  what  he 
would  be  sure  not  to  do :  I  mean  when  he  began 
to  go  in  for  his  dreadful  ideas " 

Mr.  Prodmore  took  her  boldly  up.  "About 
the  '  radical  programme,'  the  '  social  revolution,' 
the  spoliation  of  everyone,  and  the  destruction 
of  everything?  Why,  you  stupid  thing,  I've 
worked'  round  to  a  complete  agreement  with 
him.  The  taking  from  those  who  have  by  those 
who  haven't " 

"Well?"  said  the  girl,  with  some  impatience, 
as  he  sought  the  right  way  of  expressing  his 
notion. 

"What  is  it  but  to  receive,  from  consenting 
hands,  the  principal  treasure  of  the  rich?  If 
I'm  rich,  my  daughter  is  my  largest  property, 
and  I  freely  make  her  over.  I  shall,  in  other 
words,  forgive  my  young  friend  his  low  opinions 
if  he  renounces  them  for  yew." 

Cora,  at  this,  started  as  with  a  glimpse  of  de- 
light. "  He  won't  renounce  them  !  He  shan't !  " 

Her  father  appeared  still  to  enjoy  the  ingenious 


COVERING  END  241 

way  he  had  put  it,  so  that  he  had  good  humour 
to  spare.  "  If  you  suggest  that  you're  in  political 
sympathy  with  him,  you  mean  then  that  you'll 
take  him  as  he  isf" 

"  I  won't  take  him  at  all !  "  she  protested  with 
her  head  very  high ;  but  she  had  no  sooner 
uttered  the  words  than  the  sound  of  the  ap- 
proach of  wheels  caused  her  dignity  to  drop. 
"A  fly?  — it  must  be  he/"  She  turned  right 
and  left,  for  a  retreat  or  an  escape,  but  her  father 
had  already  caught  her  by  the  wrist.  "  Surely," 
she  pitifully  panted,  "you  don't  want  me  to 
bounce  on  him  thus?" 

Mr.  Prodmore,  as  he  held  her,  estimated  the 
effect.  "Your  frock  won't  do  —  with  what  it 
cost  me  ?  " 

"It's  not  my  frock,  papa,  —  it's  his  thinking 
I've  come  here  for  him  to  see  me  !  " 

He  let  her  go  and,  as  she  moved  away,  had 
another  look  for  the  social  value  of  the  view  of 
her  stout  back.  It  appeared  to  determine  him, 
for,  with  a  touch  of  mercy,  he  passed  his  word. 
"  He  doesn't  think  it,  and  he  shan't  know  it." 

The  girl  had  made  for  the  door  of  the  morning- 
room,  before  reaching  which  she  flirted  breath- 
lessly round.  "But  he  knows  you  want  me  to. 
hook  him  !  " 


242  COVERING   END 

Mr.  Prodmore  was  already  in  the  parliamentary 
attitude  the  occasion  had  suggested  to  him  for 
the  .reception  of  his  visitor.  "  The  way  to  '  hook ' 
him  will  be  not  to  be  hopelessly  vulgar.  He 
doesn't  know  that  you  know  anything."  The 
house-bell  clinked,  and  he  waved  his  companion 
away.  "  Await  us  there  with  tea,  and  mind  you 
toe  the  mark  !  " 

Chivers,  at  this  moment,  summoned  by  the  bell, 
reappeared  in  the  morning-room  doorway,  and 
Cora's  dismay  brushed  him  as  he  sidled  past  her 
and  off  into  the  passage  to  the  front.  Then,  from 
the  threshold  of  her  refuge,  she  launched  a  last 
appeal.  "  Don't  kill  me,  father  :  give  me  time  !  " 
With  which  she  dashed  into  the  room,  closing  the 
door  with  a  bang. 


II 


MR.  PKODMORE,  in  Chivers's  absence,  re- 
mained staring  as  if  at  a  sudden  image  of 
something  rather  fine.  His  child  had  left  with 
him  the  sense  of  a  quick  irradiation,  and  he  failed 
to  see  why,  at  the  worst,  such  lightnings  as  she 
was  thus  able  to  dart  shouldn't  strike  some- 
where. If  he  had  spoken  to  her  of  her  best 
manner  perhaps  that  was  her  best  manner.  He 
heard  steps  and  voices,  however,  and  imme- 
diately invited  to  his  aid  his  own,  which  was 
simply  magnificent.  Chivers,  returning,  an- 
nounced solemnly  "  Captain  Yule !  "  and  ush- 
ered in  a  tall  young  man  in  a  darkish  tweed 
suit  and  a  red  necktie,  attached  in  a  sailor's 
knot,  who,  as  he  entered,  removed  a  soft  brown 
hat.  Mr.  Prodmore,  at  this,  immediately  saluted 
him  by  uncovering.  "Delighted  at  last  to  see 
you  here  !  " 

It  was  the  young  man  who  first,  in  his  com- 
parative simplicity,  put  out  a  hand.  "  If  I've 
243 


244  COVERING  END 

not  come  before,  Mr.  Prodmore,  it  was  —  very 
frankly  speaking  —  from  the  dread  of  seeing 
you!"  His  speech  contradicted,  to  some  extent, 
his  gesture,  but  Clement  Yule's  was  an  aspect 
in  which  contradictions  were  rather  remarkably 
at  home.  Erect  and  slender,  but  as  strong  as 
he  was  straight,  he  was  set  up,  as  the  phrase 
is,  like  a  soldier,  and  yet  finished,  in  certain 
details  —  matters  of  expression  and  suggestion 
only  indeed — like  a  man  in  whom  sensibility 
had  been  recklessly  cultivated.  He  was  hard 
and  fine,  just  as  he  was  sharp  and  gentle,  just 
as  he  was  frank  and  shy,  just  as  he  was  serious 
and  young,  just  as  he  looked,  though  you  could 
never  have  imitated  it,  distinctly  "kept  up" 
and  yet  considerably  reduced.  His  features 
were  thoroughly  regular,  but  his  complete  shav- 
ing might  have  been  designed  to  show  that 
they  were,  after  all,  not  absurd.  The  face  Mr. 
Prodmore  offered  him  fairly  glowed,  on  this 
new  showing,  with  instant  pride  of  possession, 
and  there  was  that  in  Captain  Yule's  whole  air 
which  justified  such  a  sentiment  without  con- 
sciously rewarding  it. 

"Ah,  surely,"  said  the  elder  man,  "my  pres- 
ence is  not  without  a  motive  !  " 

"  It's  just  the  motive,"  Captain  Yule  returned, 


COVEBING  END  245 

"that  makes  me  wince  at  it!  Certainly  I've  no 
illusions,"  he  added,  "about  the  ground  of  our 
meeting.  Your  thorough  knowledge  of  what 
you're  about  has  placed  me  at  your  mercy — - 
you  hold  me  in  the  hollow  of  your  hand." 

It  was  vivid  in  every  inch  that  Mr.  Prod- 
more's  was  a  nature  to  expand  in  the  warmth, 
or  even  in  the  chill,  of  any  tribute  to  his  finan- 
cial subtlety.  "  Well,  I  won't,  on  my  side,  deny 
that  when,  in  general,  I  go  in  deep  I  don't  go 
in  for  nothing.  I  make  it  pay  double  ! "  he 
smiled. 

"You  make  it  pay  so  well  —  'double'  surely 
doesn't  do  you  justice  !  —  that,  if  I've  under- 
stood you,  you  can  do  quite  as  you  like  with 
this  preposterous  place.  Haven't  you  brought 
me  down  exactly  that  I  may  see  you  do  it  ?  " 

"  I've  certainly  brought  you  down  that  you 
may  open  your  eyes  !  "  This,  apparently,  how- 
ever, was  not  wliat  Mr.  Prodmore  himself  had 
arrived  to  do  with  his  own.  These  fine  points 
of  expression  literally  contracted  with  intensity. 
"  Of  course,  you  know,  you  can  always  clear  the 
property.  You  can  pay  off  the  mortgages." 

Captain  Yule,  by  this  time,  had,  as  he  had  not 
done  at  first,  looked  up  and  down,  round  about 
and  well  over  the  scene,  taking  in,  though  at  a 


246  COVERING   END 

mere  glance,  it  might  have  seemed,  more  particu- 
larly, the  row,  high  up,  of  strenuous  ancestors. 
But  Mr.  Prodmore's  last  words  rang  none  the 
less  on  his  ear,  and  he  met  them  with  mild 

amusement.  "Pay  off ?  What  can  I  pay 

off  with?" 

"You  can  always  raise  money." 

"What  can  I  raise  it  on?" 

Mr.  Prodmore  looked  massively  gay.  "  On 
your  great  political  future." 

"Oh,  I've  not  taken  —  for  the  short  run  at 
least  —  the  lucrative  line,"  the  young  man  said, 
"and  I  know  what  you  think  of  that." 

Mr.  Prodmore's  blandness  confessed,  by  its 
instant  increase,  to  this  impeachment.  There 
was  always  the  glory  of  intimacy  in  Yule's  know- 
ing what  he  thought.  "  I  hold  that  you  keep,  in 
public,  very  dangerous  company ;  but  I  also  hold 
that  you're  extravagant  mainly  because  you've 
nothing  at  stake.  A  man  has  the  right  opinions," 
he  developed  with  pleasant  confidence,  "as  soon 
as  he  has  something  to  lose  by  having  the  wrong. 
Haven't  I  already  hinted  to  you  how  to  set  your 
political  house  in  order?  You  drop  into  the 
lower  regions  because  you  keep  the  best  rooms 
empty.  You're  a  firebrand,  in  other  words  my 
dear  Captain,  simply  because  you're  a  bachelor. 


COVERING   END  247 

That's  one  of  the  early  complaints  we  all  pass 
through,  but  it's  soon  over,  and  the  treatment  for 
it  quite  simple.  I  have  your  remedy." 

The  young  man's  eyes,  wandering  again  about 
the  house,  might  have  been  those  of  an  auditor  of 
the  fiddling  before  the  rise  of  the  curtain.  "A 
remedy  worse  than  the  disease  ?  " 

"  There's  nothing  worse,  that  I've  ever  heard 
of,"  Mr.  Prodmore  sharply  replied,  "  than  your 
particular  fix.  Least  of  all  a  heap  of  gold " 

"  A  heap  of  gold  ?  "  His  visitor  idly  settled, 
as  if  the  curtain  were  going  up. 

Mr.  Prodmore  raised  it  bravely.  "In  the  lap 
of  a  fine  fresh  lass !  Give  pledges  to  fortune,  as 
somebody  says  —  then  we'll  talk.  You  want 
money  —  that's  what  you  want.  Well,  marry  it !  " 

Clement  Yule,  for  a  little,  never  stirred,  save 
that  his  eyes  yet  again  strayed  vaguely.  At  last 
they  stopped  with  a  smile.  "  Of  course  I  could 
do  that  in  a  moment !  " 

"  It's  even  just  my  own  danger  from  you,"  his 
companion  returned.  "  I  perfectly  recognise  that 
any  woman  would  now  jump " 

"I  don't  like  jumping  women,"  Captain  Yule 
threw  in;  "but  that  perhaps  is  a  detail.  It's 
more  to  the  point  that  I've  yet  to  see  the  woman 
whom,  by  an  advance  of  my  own " 


248  COVERING   END 

"You'd  care  to  keep  in  the  really  attractive 
position ?" 

"  Which  can  never,  of  course,  be  anything  "  — 
Yule  took  his  friend  up  again  — "  but  that  of 
waiting  quietly." 

"Never,  never  anything  ! "  Mr.  Prodmore,  most 
assentingly,  banished  all  other  thought.  "  But 
I  haven't  asked  you,  you  know,  to  make  an 
advance." 

"  You've  only  asked  me  to  receive  one  ?  " 

Mr.  Prodmore  waited  a  little.  "  Well,  I've 
asked  you  —  I  asked  you  a  month  ago  —  to  think 
it  all  over." 

"I  have  thought  it  all  over,"  Clement  Yule 
said ;  "  and  the  strange  sequel  seems  to  be  that 
my  eyes  have  got  accustomed  to  my  darkness. 
I  seem  to  make  out,  in  the  gloom  of  my  medita- 
tions, that,  at  the  worst,  I  can  let  the  whole  thing 
slide." 

"  The  property  ?  "  —  Mr.  Prodmore  jerked  back 
as  if  it  were  about  to  start. 

"Isn't  it  the  property,"  his  visitor  inquired, 
"  that  positively  throws  me  up  ?  If  I  can  afford 
neither  to  live  on  it  nor  to  disencumber  it,  I  can 
at  least  let  it  save  its  own  bacon  and  pay  its  own 
debts.  I  can  say  to  you  simply :  '  Take  it,  my 
dear  sir,  and  the  devil  take  you!'" 


COVERING   END  249 

Mr.  Prodmore  gave  a  quick,  strained  smile. 
"  You  wouldn't  be  so  shockingly  rude !  " 

"  Why  not  —  if  I'm  a  firebrand  and  a  keeper 
of  low  company  and  a  general  nuisance?  Sacri- 
fice for  sacrifice,  that  might  very  well  be  the 
least ! " 

This  was  put  with  such  emphasis  that  Mr. 
Prodmore  was  for  a  moment  arrested.  He  could 
stop  very  short,  however,  and  yet  talk  as  still 
going.  "  How  do  you  know,  if  you  haven't  com- 
pared them  ?  It's  just  to  make  the  comparison  — 
in  all  the  proper  circumstances  —  that  you're  here 
at  this  hour."  He  took,  with  a  large,  though 
vague,  exhibitory  gesture,  a  few  turns  about. 
"Now  that  you  stretch  yourself  —  for  an  hour's 
relaxation  and  rocked,  as  it  were,  by  my  friendly 
hand  —  in  the  ancient  cradle  of  your  race,  can 
you  seriously  entertain  the  idea  of  parting  with 
such  a  venerable  family  relic  ?  " 

It  was  evident  that,  as  he  decorously  embraced 
the  scene,  the  young  man,  in  spite  of  this  dissua- 
sive tone,  was  entertaining  ideas.  It  might  have 
appeared  at  the  moment  to  a  spectator  in  whom 
fancy  was  at  all  alert  that  the  place,  becoming  in 
a  manner  conscious  of  the  question,  felt  itself  on 
its  honour,  and  that  its  honour  could  make  no 
compromise.  It  met  Clement  Yule  with  no  gri- 


250  COVERING   END 

mace  of  invitation,  with  no  attenuation  of  its  rich 
old  sadness.  It  was  as  if  the  two  hard  spirits, 
the  grim  genius  loci  and  the  quick  modern  con- 
science, stood  an  instant  confronted.  "  The  cradle 
of  my  race  bears,  for  me,  Mr.  Prodmore,  a  strik- 
ing resemblance  to  its  tomb."  The  sigh  that 
dropped  from  him,  however,  was  not  quite  void 
of  tenderness.  It  might,  for  that  matter,  have 
been  a  long,  sad  creak,  portending  collapse, 
of  some  immemorial  support  of  the  Yules. 
"  Heavens,  how  melancholy !  " 

Mr.  Prodmore,  somewhat  ambiguously,  took  up 
the  sound.  "  Melancholy  ?  "  —  he  just  balanced. 
That  well  might  be,  even  a  little  should  be  —  yet 
agreement  might  depreciate. 

"  Musty,  mouldy  ;  "  then  with  a  poke  of  his 
stick  at  a  gap  in  the  stuff  with  which  an  old  chair 
was  covered,  "  mangy  !  "  Captain  Yule  responded. 
"  Is  this  the  character  throughout  ?  " 

Mr.  Prodmore  fixed  a  minute  the  tell-tale 
tatter.  "You  must  judge  for  yourself  —  you 
must  go  over  the  house."  He  hesitated  again; 
then  his  indecision  vanished  —  the  right  line  was 
clear.  "  It  does  look  a  bit  run  down,  but  I'll  tell 
you  what  I'll  do.  I'll  do  it  up  for  you  —  neatly  : 
I'll  throw  that  in  !  " 

His  young  friend  turned  on  him  an  eye  that, 


COVERING   END  251 

though,  markedly  enlivened  by  his  offer,  was 
somehow  only  the  more  inscrutable.  "  Will  you 
put  in  the  electric  light  ?  " 

Mr.  Prodmore's  own  twinkle  —  at  this  touch 
of  a  spring  he  had  not  expected  to  work  —  was, 
on  the  other  hand,  temporarily  veiled.  "Well, 
if  you'll  meet  me  half-way !  We're  dealing 
here  "  —  he  backed  up  his  gravity  —  "  with 
fancy-values.  Don't  you  feel,"  he  appealed,  "  as 
you  take  it  all  in,  a  kind  of  a  something-or- 
other  down  your  back  ?  " 

Clement  Yule  gazed  awhile  at  one  of  the 
pompous  quarterings  in  the  faded  old  glass  that, 
in  tones  as  of  late  autumn,  crowned  with  ar- 
morial figures  the  top  of  the  great  hall- window; 
then  with  abruptness  he  turned  away.  "  Per- 
haps I  don't  take  it  all  in;  but  what  I  do  feel 
is  —  since  you  mention  it  —  a  sort  of  stiffening 
of  the  spine !  The  whole  thing  is  too  queer  — 
too  cold  —  too  cruel." 

"Cruel?"  —  Mr.  Prodmore's  demur  was  virt- 
uous. 

"Like  the  face  of  some  stuck-up  distant  re- 
lation who  won't  speak  first.  I  see  in  the  stare 
of  the  old  dragon,  I  taste  in  his  very  breath,  all 
the  helpless  mortality  he  has  tucked  away  !  " 

"  Lord,  sir  —  you  have  fancies  !  "  Mr.  Prod- 
more  was  almost  scandalised. 


252  COVERING  END 

But  the  young  man's  fancies  only  multiplied 
as  he  moved,  not  at  all  critical,  but  altogether 
nervous,  from  object  to  object.  "  I  don't  know 
what's  the  matter  —  but  there  is  more  here  than 
meets  the  eye."  He  tried  as  for  his  amusement 
or  his  relief  to  figure  it  out.  "  I  miss  the  old 
presences.  I  feel  the  old  absences.  I  hear  the 
old  voices.  I  see  the  old  ghosts." 

This  last  was  a  profession  that  offered  some 
common  ground.  "  The  old  ghosts,  Captain 
Yule,"  his  companion  promptly  replied,  "are 
worth  so  much  a  dozen,  and  with  no  reduction, 
I  must  remind  you  —  with  the  price  indeed 
rather  raised  —  for  the  quantity  taken!"  Feel- 
ing then  apparently  that  he  had  cleared  the  air 
a  little  by  this  sally,  Mr.  Prodmore  proceeded 
to  pat  his  interlocutor  on  a  back  that  he  by  no 
means  wished  to  cause  to  be  put  to  the  wall. 
"Look  about  you,  at  any  rate,  a  little  more." 
He  crossed  with  his  toes  well  out  the  line  that 
divides  encouragement  from  patronage.  "  Do 
make  yourself  at  home." 

"  Thank  you  very  much,  Mr.  Prodmore.  May 
I  light  a  cigarette  ?  "  his  visitor  asked. 

"  In  your  own  house,  Captain  ?  " 

"  That's  just  the  question :  it  seems  so  much 
less  my  own  house  than  before  I  had  come  into 


COVERING   END  253 

it ! "  The  Captain  offered  Mr.  Prodmore  a 
cigarette  which  that  gentleman,  also  taking  a 
light  from  him,  accepted ;  then  he  lit  his  own 
and  began  to  smoke.  "As  I  understand  you," 
he  went  on,  "you  lump  your  two  conditions? 
I  mean  I  must  accept  both  or  neither?" 

Mr.  Prodmore  threw  back  his  shoulders  with 
a  high  recognition  of  the  long  stride  represented 
by  this  question.  "You  will  accept  both,  for, 
by  doing  so,  you'll  clear  the  property  at  a 
stroke.  The  way  I  put  it  is  —  see?  —  that  if 
you'll  stand  for  Gossage,  you'll  get  returned  for 
Gossage." 

"And  if  I  get  returned  for  Gossage,  I  shall 
marry  your  daughter.  Accordingly,"  the  young 
man  pursued,  "if  I  marry  your  daughter " 

"I'll  burn  up,  before  your  eyes,"  said  this 
young  lady's  proprietor,  "every  scratch  of  your 
pen.  It  will  be  a  bonfire  of  signatures.  There 
won't  be  a  penny  to  pay  —  there'll  only  be  a 
position  to  take.  You'll  take  it  with  peculiar 
grace." 

"  Peculiar,  Mr.  Prodmore  —  very !  " 

The  young  man  had  assented  more  than  he 
desired,  but  he  was  not  deterred  by  it  from  com- 
pleting the  picture.  "  You'll  settle  down  here  in 
comfort  and  honour." 


254  COVERING   END 

Clement  Yule  took  several  steps ;  the  effect  of 
his  host  was  the  reverse  of  soothing;  yet  the 
latter  watched  his  irritation  as  if  it  were  the 
working  of  a  charm.  "Are  you  very  sure  of 
the  '  honour '  if  I  turn  my  political  coat  ?  " 

"You'll  only  be  turning  it  back  again  to  the 
way  it  was  always  worn.  Gossage  will  receive 
you  with  open  arms  and  press  you  to  a  heaving 
Tory  bosom.  That  bosom  "  —  Mr.  "Prodmore  fol- 
lowed himself  up  —  "has  never  heaved  but  to 
sound  Conservative  principles.  The  cradle,  as 
I've  called  it,  —  or  at  least  the  rich,  warm  coverlet, 
—  of  your  race,  Gossage  was  the  political  prop- 
erty, so  to  speak,  of  generations  of  your  family. 
Stand  therefore  in  the  good  old  interest  and 
you'll  stand  like  a  lion." 

""  I'm  afraid  you  mean,"  Captain  Yule  laughed, 
"  that  I  must  first  roar  like  one." 

"Oh,  I'll  do  the  roaring !"  — and  Mr.  Prod- 
more  shook  his  mane.  "  Leave  that  to  me." 

"Then  why  the  deuce  don't  you  stand  your- 
self?" 

Mr.  Prodmore  knew  so  familiarly  why  !  "  Be- 
cause I'm  not  a  remarkably  handsome  young  man 
with  the  grand  old  home  and  the  right  old  name. 
Because  I'm  a  different  sort  of  matter  altogether. 
But  if  I  haven't  these  advantages,"  he  went  on, 


COVERING   END  255 

"you'll  do  justice  to  my  natural  desire  that  my 
daughter  at  least  shall  have  them." 

Clement  Yule  watched  himself  smoke  a  minute. 
"  Doing  justice  to  natural  desires  is  just  what,  of 
late,  Fve  tried  to  make  a  study  of.  But  I  con- 
fess I  don't  quite  grasp  the  deep  attraction  you 
appear  to  discover  in  so  large  a  surrender  of  your 
interests." 

"  My  surrenders  are  my  own  affair,"  Mr.  Prod- 
more  rang  out,  "and  as  for  my  interests,  as  I 
never,  on  principle,  give  anything  for  nothing,  I 
dare  say  I  may  be  trusted  to  know  them  when 
I  see  them.  You  come  high  —  I  don't  for  a 
moment  deny  it ;  but  when  I  look  at  you,  in  this 
pleasant,  intimate  way,  my  dear  boy  —  if  you'll 
allow  me  so  to  describe  things  —  I  recognise  one 
of  those  cases,  unmistakeable  when  really  met,  in 
which  one  must  put  down  one's  money.  There's 
not  an  article  in  the  whole  shop,  if  you  don't 
mind  the  comparison,  that  strikes  me  as  better 
value.  I  intend  you  shall  be,  Captain,"  Mr. 
Prodmore  wound  up  in  a  frank,  bold  burst,  "  the 
true  comfort  of  my  life  !  " 

The  young  man  was  as  hushed  for  a  little  as 
if  an  organ-tone  were  still  in  the  air.  "May  I 
inquire,"  he  at  last  returned,  "  if  Miss  Prodmore's 
ideas  of  comfort  are  as  well  defined  —  and  in  her 


256  COVERING   END 

case,  I  may  add,  as  touchingly  modest  —  as  her 
father's?  Is  she  a  responsible  party  of  this  in- 
genious arrangement?" 

Mr.  Prodinore  rendered  homage  —  his  appre- 
ciation was  marked  —  to  the  elevated  character 
of  his  young  friend's  scruple.  "  Miss  Prodmore, 
Captain  Yule,  may  be  perhaps  best  described  as 
a  large  smooth  sheet  of  blank,  though  gilt-edged, 
paper.  No  image  of  any  tie  but  the  true  and 
perfect  filial  has  yet,  I  can  answer  for  it,  formed 
itself  on  the  considerable  expanse.  But  for  that 
image  to  be  projected " 

"  I've  only,  in  person,  to  appear  ? "  Yule  asked 
with  an  embarrassment  that  he  tried  to  laugh  off. 

"And,  naturally,  in  person,"  Mr.  Prodmore  in- 
telligently assented,  "do  yourself,  as  well  as  the 
young  lady,  justice.  Do  you  remember  what  you 
said  when  I  first,  in  London,  laid  the  matter  be- 
fore you  ?  " 

Clement  Yule  did  remember,  but  his  amusement 
increased.  "  I  think  I  said  it  struck  me  I  should 
first  take  a  look  at  —  what  do  you  call  it? — the 
corpus  delicti." 

"You  should  first  see  for  yourself  what  you 
had  really  come  into  ?  I  was  not  only  eager  for 
that,"  said  Mr.  Prodmore,  "  but  I'm  willing  to  go 
further:  I'm  quite  ready  to  hear  you  say  that 


COVERING   END  257 

you  think  you  should  also  first  see  the  young 
lady." 

Captain  Yule  continued  to  laugh.  "There  is 
something  in  that  then,  since  you  mention  it !  " 

"I  think  you'll  find  that  there's  everything." 
Mr.  Prodmore  again  looked  at  his  watch.  "Which 
will  you  take  first  ?  " 

"First?" 

"  The  young  lady  or  the  house  ?  " 

His  companion,  at  this,  unmistakeably  started. 
"  Do  you  mean  your  daughter's  here  f  " 

Mr.  Prodmore  glowed  with  consciousness.  "  In 
the  morning-room." 

"  Waiting  for  me  ?  " 

The  tone  showed  a  consternation  that  Mr.  Prod- 
more's  was  alert  to  soothe.  "Ah,  as  long,  you 
know,  as  you  like  !  " 

Yule's  alarm,  however,  was  not  assuaged ;  it 
appeared  to  grow  as  he  stared,  much  discom- 
posed, yet  sharply  thinking,  at  the  door  to  which 
his  friend  had  pointed.  "Oh,  longer  than  this, 
please !  "  Then  as  he  turned  away  :  "  Do  you 
mean  she  knows ?  " 

"That  she's  here  on  view?"  Mr.  Prodmore 
hung  fire  a  moment,  but  was  equal  to  the  occa- 
sion. "  She  knows  nothing  whatever.  She's  as 
unconscious  as  the  rose  on  its  stem  ! " 


258  COVERING   END 

His  companion  was  visibly  relieved.  "  That's 
right  —  let  her  remain  so  !  I'll  first  take  the 
house,"  said  Clement  Yule. 

"Shall  I  go  round  with  you?"  Mr.  Prodmore 
asked. 

The  young  man's  reflection  was  brief.  "  Thank 
you.  I'd  rather,  on  the  whole,  go  round  alone." 

The  old  servant  who  had  admitted  the  gentle- 
men came  back  at  this  crisis  from  the  morning- 
room,  looking  from  under  a  bent  brow  and  with 
much  limpid  earnestness  from  one  of  them  to  the 
other.  The  one  he  first  addressed  had  evidently, 
though  quite  unaware  of  it,  inspired  him  with 
a  sympathy  from  which  he  now  took  a  hint. 
"  There's  tea  on,  sir  !  "  he  persuasively  jerked  as 
he  passed  the  younger  man. 

The  elder  answered.  "Then  I'll  join  my 
daughter."  He  gained  the  morning-room  door, 
whence  he  repeated  with  an  appropriate  gesture 
—  that  of  offering  proudly,  with  light,  firm  fin- 
gers, a  flower  of  his  own  celebrated  raising  — 
his  happy  formula  of  Miss  Prodmore's  state. 
"  The  rose  on  its  stem  !  "  Scattering  petals, 
diffusing  fragrance,  he  thus  passed  out. 

Chivers,  meanwhile,  had  rather  pointlessly 
settled  once  more  in  its  place  some  small  object 
that  had  not  strayed ;  to  whom  Clement  Yule, 


COVERING  END  259 

absently  watching  him,  abruptly  broke  out.  "  I 
say,  my  friend,  what  colour  is  the  rose  ?  " 

The  old  man  looked  up  with  a  dimness  that 
presently  glimmered.  "The  rose,  sir?"  He 
turned  to  the  open  door  and  the  shining  day. 
"Rather  a  brilliant " 

"A  brilliant ?"     Yule  was  interested. 

"Kind  of  old-fashioned  red."  Chivers  smiled 
with  the  pride  of  being  thus  able  to  testify,  but 
the  next  instant  his  smile  went  out.  "It's  the 
only  one  left  —  on  the  old  west  wall." 

His  visitor's  mirth,  at  this,  quickly  enough 
revived.  "  My  dear  fellow,  I'm  not  alluding  to 
the  sole  ornament  of  the  garden,  but  to  the 
young  lady  at  present  in  the  morning-room.  Do 
you  happen  to  have  noticed  if  she's  pretty  ?  " 

Chivers  stood  queerly  rueful.  "Laws,  sir — 
it's  a  matter  I  mostly  notice  ;  but  isn't  it,  at  the 
same  time,  sir,  a  matter  —  like  —  of  taste  ?  " 

"  Pre-eminently.  That's  just  why  I  appeal 
with  such  confidence  to  yours." 

The  old  man  acknowledged  with  a  flush  of 
real  embarrassment  a  responsibility  he  had  so 
little  invited.  "  Well,  sir,  —  mine  was  always 
a  sort  of  fancy  for  something  more  merry- 
like." 

"  She   isn't   merry-like   then,  poor   Miss  Prod- 


260  COVERING   END 

more  ? "  Captain  Yule's  attention,  however, 
dropped  before  the  answer  came,  and  he  turned 
off  the  subject  with  an  "  Ah,  if  you  come  to  that, 
neither  am  I  !  But  it  doesn't  signify,"  he  went 
on.  "What  are  you?"  he  more  sociably  de- 
manded. 

Chivers  clearly  had  to  think  a  bit.  "Well, 
sir,  I'm  not  quite  that.  Whatever  has  there 
been  to  make  me,  sir?"  he  asked  in  dim  exten- 
uation. 

"  How  in  the  world  do  I  know  ?  I  mean  to 
whom  do  you  belong  ?  " 

Chivers  seemed  to  scan  impartially  the  whole 
field.  "  If  you  could  just  only  tell  me,  sir  !  I 
quite  seem  to  waste  away —  for  someone  to 
take  an  order  of." 

Clement  Yule,  by  this  time,  had  become  aware 
he  was  amusing.  "  Who  pays  your  wages  ?  " 

"  No  one  at  all,  sir,"  said  the  old  man  very 
simply. 

His  friend,  fumbling  an  instant  in  a  waistcoat 
pocket,  produced  something  that  his  hand,  in 
obedience  to  a  little  peremptor}7"  gesture  and  by 
a  trick  of  which  he  had  unlearned,  through  scant 
custom,  the  neatness,  though  the  propriety  was 
instinctive,  placed  itself  in  a  shy  practical  relation 
to.  "  Then  there's  a  sovereign.  And  I  haven't 


COVERING   END  261 

many  !  "  the  young  man,  turning  away  resignedly, 
threw  after  it. 

Chivers,  for  an  instant,  intensely  studied  him. 
"Ah,  then,  shouldn't  it  stay  in  the  family?" 

Clement  Yule  wheeled  round,  first  struck,  then, 
at  the  sight  of  the  figure  made  by  his  companion 
in  this  offer,  visibly  touched.  "  I  think  it  does, 
old  boy." 

Chivers  kept  his  eyes  on  him  now.  "I've 
served  your  house,  sir." 

"  How  long  ?  " 

"All  my  life." 

So,  for  a  time,  they  faced  each  other,  and  some- 
thing in  Chivers  made  Yule  at  last  speak.  "  Then 
I  won't  give  you  up  !  " 

"Indeed,  sir,  I  hope  you  won't  give  up  any- 
thing." 

The  Captain  took  up  his  hat.  "  It  remains  to 
be  seen."  He  looked  over  the  place  again;  his 
eyes  wandered  to  the  open  door.  "  Is  that  the 
garden  ?  " 

"It  was!"  —  and  the  old  man's  sigh  was  like 
the  creak  of  the  wheel  of  time.  "  Shall  I  show 
you  how  it  used  to  be  ?  " 

"  It's  just  as  it  z's,  alas,  that  I  happen  to  require 
it !  "  Captain  Yule  reached  the  door  and  stood 
looking  beyond.  "Don't  come,"  he  then  said; 


262  COVERING   END 

"  I   want    to   think."      With  which   he  walked 
out. 

Chivers,  left  alone,  appeared  to  wonder  at  it, 
and  his  wonder,  like  that  of  most  old  people,  lay 
near  his  lips.  "What  does  he  want,  poor  dear, 
to  think  about  ? "  This  speculation,  however, 
was  immediately  checked  by  a  high,  clear  voice 
that  preceded  the  appearance  on  the  stairs,  be- 
fore she  had  reached  the  middlemost  landing, 
of  the  wonderful  figure  of  a  lady,  a  lady  who, 
with  the  almost  trumpeted  cheer  of  her  peremp- 
tory but  friendly  call  —  "Housekeeper,  Butler, 
old  Family  Servant !  "  —  fairly  waked  the  sleep- 
ing echoeso  Chivers  gazed  up  at  her  in  quick 
remembrance,  half  dismayed,  half  dazzled,  of  a 
duty  neglected.  She  appeared  now ;  she  shone 
at  him  out  of  the  upper  dusk ;  reaching  the 
middle,  she  had  begun  to  descend,  with  beautiful 
laughter  and  rustling  garments  ;  and  though  she 
was  alone  she  gave  him  the  sense  of  coming  in  a 
crowd  and  with  music.  "  Oh,  I  should  have  told 
him  of  her!" 


Ill 


SHE  was  indeed  an  apparition,  a  presence 
requiring  announcement  and  explanation  just  in 
the  degree  in  which  it  seemed  to  show  itself  in 
a  relation  quite  of  its  own  to  all  social  pre- 
liminaries. It  evidently  either  assumed  them  to 
be  already  over  or  wished  to  forestall  them 
altogether ;  what  was  clear  at  any  rate  was 
that  it  allowed  them  scant  existence.  She  was 
young,  tall,  radiant,  lovely,  and  dressed  in  a 
manner  determined  at  once,  obviously,  by  the 
fact  and  by  the  humour  of  her  journey  —  it 
might  have  proclaimed  her  so  a  pilgrim  or  so 
set  her  up  as  a  priestess.  Most  journeys,  for 
this  lady,  at  all  events,  were  clearly  a  brush  of 
Paris.  "Did  you  think  I  had  got  snapped 
down  in  an  old  box  like  that  poor  girl  —  what's 
her  name  ?  the  one  who  was  poking  round  too 
— in  the  celebrated  poem?  You  dear,  delightful 
man,  why  didn't  you  tell  me  ? " 

"Tell  you,  mum ?" 

"  Well,    that    you're    so    perfectly  —  perfect ! 


264  COVERING  END 

You're  ever  so  much  better  than  anyone  has 
ever  said.  Why,  in  the  name  of  common  sense, 
has  nobody  ever  said  anything?  You're  every- 
thing in  the  world  you  ought  to  be,  and  not 
the  shade  of  a  shade  of  anything  you  oughtn't  !  " 

It  was  a  higher  character  to  be  turned  out 
with  than  poor  Chivers  had  ever  dreamed. 
"  Well,  mum,  I  try  !  "  he  gaped. 

"  Oh,  no,  you  don't  —  that's  just  your  charm  ! 
/  try,"  cried  his  friend,  "  but  you  do  nothing  : 
here  you  simply  are  —  you  can't  help  it !  " 

He  stood  overwhelmed.     "Me,  mum?" 

She  took  him  in  at  the  eyes  —  she  could  take 
everjrthing  at  once.  "  Yes,  you  too,  you  positive 
old  picture  !  I've  seen  the  old  masters  —  but 
you're  the  old  master  !  " 

"The  master  — I?"     He  fairly  fell  back. 

" '  The  good  and  faithful  servant '  —  Rembrandt 
van  Rhyn  :  with  three  stars.  That's  what  you 
are  ! "  Nothing  would  have  been  more  droll 
to  a  spectator  than  her  manner  of  meeting  his 
humbleness,  or  more  charming  indeed  than  the 
practical  sweetness  of  her  want  of  imagination 
of  it.  "  The  house  is  a  vision  of  beauty,  and 
you're  simply  worthy  of  the  house.  I  can't  say 
more  for  you !  " 

"I  find  it  a  bit  of  a   strain,  mum,"    Chivers 


COVEKING   END  265 

candidly  replied,  "to  keep  up  —  fairly  to  call  it 
—  with  what  you  do  say." 

"  That's  just  what  everyone  finds  it !  "  —  she 
broke  into  the  happiest  laugh.  "  Yet  I  haven't 
come  here  to  suffer  in  silence,  you  know  —  to 
suffer,  I  mean,  from  envy  and  despair."  She 
was  in  constant  movement,  from  side  to  side, 
observing,  comparing,  returning,  taking  notes 
while  she  gossiped  and  gossiping,  too,  for 
remembrance.  The  intention  of  remembrance 
even  had  in  it,  however,  some  prevision  of  fail- 
ure or  some  alloy  of  irritation.  "  You're  so 
fatally  right  and  so  deadly  complete,  all  the 
same,  that  I  can  really  scarcely  bear  it :  with 
every  fascinating  feature  that  I  had  already 
heard  of  and  thought  I  was  prepared  for,  and 
ever  so  many  others  that,  strange  to  say,  I 
hadn't  and  wasn't,  and  that  you  just  spring 
right  at  me  like  a  series  of  things  going  off. 
What  do  you  call  it,"  she  asked  —  "a  royal 
salute,  a  hundred  guns  ?  " 

Her  enthusiasm  had  a  bewildering  form,  but 
it  had  by  this  time  warmed  the  air,  and  the  old 
man  rubbed  his  hands  as  over  a  fire  to  which 
the  bellows  had  been  applied.  "I  saw  as  soon 
as  you  arrived,  mum,  that  you  were  looking  for 
more  things  than  ever  /  heard  tell  of  I " 


266  COVERING   END 

"Oh,  I  had  got  you  by  heart,"  she  returned, 
"  from  books  and  drawings  and  photos ;  I  had 
you  in  my  pocket  when  I  came :  so,  you  see,  as 
soon  as  you  were  so  good  as  to  give  me  my 
head  and  let  me  loose,  I  knew  my  way  about. 
It's  all  here,  every  inch  of  it,"  she  competently 
continued,  "and  now  at  last  I  can  do  what  I 
want !  " 

A  light  of  consternation,  at  this,  just  glim- 
mered in  Chivers's  face.  "And  pray,  mum, 
what  might  that  be?" 

"Why,  take  you  right  back  with  me — to 
Missoura  Top." 

This  answer  seemed  to  fix  his  bewilderment, 
but  he  was  there  for  the  general  convenience. 

"  Do  I  understand  you,  mum,  that  you  re- 
quire to  take  me?" 

Her  particular  convenience,  on  the  spot,  em- 
braced him,  so  new  and  delightful  a  sense  had 
he  suddenly  read  into  her  words.  "Do  you 
mean  to  say  you'd  come  —  as  the  old  Family 
Servant  ?  Then  do,  you  nice  real  thing :  it's 
just  what  I'm  dying  for  —  an  old  Family  Ser- 
vant! You're  somebody's  else,  yes  —  but  every- 
thing, over  here,  is  somebody's  else,  and  I  want, 
tod,  a  first-rate  second-hand  one,  all  ready  made, 
as  you  are,  but  not  too  much  done  up.  You're 


COVEBING   END  267 

the  best  I've  seen  yet,  and  I  wish  I  could  have 
you  packed  —  put  up  in  paper  and  bran  —  as 
I  shall  have  my  old  pot  there."  She  whisked 
about,  remembering,  recovering,  eager  :  "  Don't 
let  me  forget  my  precious  pot !  "  Excited,  with 
quick  transitions,  she  quite  sociably  appealed 
to  her  companion,  who  shuffled  sympathetically 
to  where,  out  of  harm,  the  object  had  been 
placed  on  a  table.  "  Don't  you  just  love  old 
crockery?  That's  awfully  sweet  old  Chelsea." 

He  took  up  the  piece  with  tenderness,  though, 
in  his  general  agitation,  not  perhaps  with  all 
the  caution  with  which,  for  daily  service,  he 
handled  ancient  frailties.  He  at  any  rate  turned 
on  this  fresh  subject  an  interested,  puzzled  eye. 
"  Where  is  it  I've  known  this  very  bit  —  though 
not  to  say,  as  you  do,  by  name?"  Suddenly 
it  came  to  him.  "In  the  pew-opener's  front 
parlour ! " 

"No,"  his  interlocutress  cried,  "in  the  pew- 
opener's  best  bedroom:  on  the  old  chest  of 
drawers,  you  know  —  with  those  ducks  of  brass 
handles.  I've  got  the  handles  too  —  I  mean  the 
whole  thing ;  and  the  brass  fender  and  fire- 
irons,  and  the  chair  her  grandmother  died  in. 
Not  in  the  fly,"  she  added  —  "it  was  such  a 
bore  that  they  have  to  be  sent." 


268  COVERING   END 

Chivers,  with  the  pot  still  in  his  hands,  fairly 
rocked  in  the  high  wind  of  so  much  confidence 
and  such  great  transactions.  He  had  nothing 
for  these,  however,  but  approval.  "You  did 
right  to  take  this  out,  mum,  when  the  fly  went 
to  the  stables.  Them  flymen  do  be  cruel  rash 
with  anything  that's  delicate."  Of  the  delicacy 
of  the  vessel  it  now  rested  with  him  to  deposit 
safely  again  he  was  by  this  time  so  apprecia- 
tively aware  that  in  returning  with  it  to  its 
save  niche  he  stumbled  into  some  obscure  trap 
literally  laid  for  him  by  his  nervousness.  It 
was  the  matter  of  a  few  seconds,  of  a  false 
movement,  a  knock  of  the  elbow,  a  gasp,  a  shriek, 
a  complete  little  crash.  There  was  the  pot  on 
the  pavement,  in  several  pieces,  and  the  clumsy 
cup-bearer  blue  with  fear.  "  Mercy  on  us,  mum, 
—  I've  brought  shame  on  my  old  grey  hairs  ! " 

The  little  shriek  of  his  companion  had  smoth- 
ered itself  in  the  utterance,  and  the  next  min- 
ute, with  the  ruin  between  them,  they  were 
contrastedly  face  to  face.  The  charming 
woman,  who  had  already  found  more  voices  in 
the  air  than  anyone  had  found  before,  could, 
in  the  happy  play  of  this  power,  find  a  poetry 
in  her  accident.  "  Oh,  but  the  way  you  take 
it !  "  she  laughed  — "  you're  too  quaint  to 


COVERING   END  269 

live  !  "  She  looked  at  him  as  if  he  alone  had 
suffered  —  as  if  his  suffering  indeed  positively 
added  to  his  charm.  "The  way  you  said  that 
now  —  it's  just  the  very  « type '  !  That's  all  I 
want  of  you  now  —  to  be  the  very  type.  It's 
what  you  are,  you  poor  dear  thing  —  for  you 
can't  help  it;  and  it's  what  everything  and 
everyone  else  is,  over  here ;  so  that  you  had 
just  better  all  make  up  your  minds  to  it  and 
not  try  to  shirk  it.  There  was  a  type  in  the 
train  with  me  —  the  'awfully  nice  girl'  of  all 
the  English  novels,  the  'simple  maiden  in  her 
flower'  of  —  who  is  it?  —  your  great  poet.  She 
couldn't  help  it  either  —  in  fact  I  wouldn't  have 
let  her!"  With  this,  while  Chivers  picked  up 
his  fragments,  his  lady  had  a  happy  recall.  His 
face,  as  he  stood  there  with  the  shapeless  ele- 
ments of  his  humiliation  fairly  rattling  again 
in  his  hands,  was  a  reflection  of  her  extraor- 
dinary manner  of  enlarging  the  subject,  or 
rather,  more  beneficently  perhaps,  the  space  that 
contained  it.  "By  the  way,  the  girl  was  com- 
ing right  here.  Has  she  come  ?  " 

Chivers  crept  solemnly  away,  as  if  to  bury 
his  dead,  which  he  consigned,  with  dumb  rites, 
to  a  situation  of  honourable  publicity ;  then,  as 
he  came  back,  he  replied  without  elation  :  "  Miss 


270  COVERING  END 

Prodmore  is  here,  mum.  She's  having  her 
tea." 

This,  for  his  friend,  was  a  confirmatory  touch 
to  be  fitted  with  eagerness  into  the  picture. 
"Yes,  that's  exactly  it  —  they're  always  having 
their  tea !  " 

"  With  Mr.  Prodmore  —  in  the  morning-room," 
the  old  man  supplemented.  "Captain  Yule's  in 
the  garden." 

"Captain  Yule?" 

"The  new  master.     He's  also  just  arrived." 

The  wonderful  lady  gave  an  immediate  "  Oh !  " 
to  the  effect  of  which  her  silence  for  another  mo- 
ment seemed  to  add.  "  She  didn't  tell  me  about 
Atw." 

"Well,  mum,"  said  Chivers,  "it  do  be  a 
strange  thing  to  tell.  He  had  never  —  like, 
mum  —  so  much  as  seen  the  place." 

"  Before  today  —  his  very  own  ?  "  This  too, 
for  the  visitor,  was  an  impression  among  im- 
pressions, and,  like  most  of  her  others,  it  ended 
after  an  instant  as  a  laugh.  "Well,  I  hope  he 
likes  it ! " 

"I  haven't  seen  many,  mum,"  Chivers  boldly 
declared,  "that  like  it  as  much  as  you." 

She  made  with  her  handsome  head  a  motion 
that  appeared  to  signify  still  deeper  things  than 


COVERING   END  271 

he  had  caught.  Her  beautiful  wondering  eyes 
played  high  and  low,  like  the  flight  of  an  im- 
prisoned swallow,  then,  as  she  sank  upon  a  seat, 
dropped  at  last  as  if  the  creature  were  bruised 
with  its  limits.  "I  should  like  it  still  better  if 
it  were  my  very  own  !  " 

"  Well,  mum,"  Chivers  sighed,  "  if  it  wasn't 
against  my  duty  I  could  wish  indeed  it  were  ! 
But  the  Captain,  mum,"  he  conscientiously  added, 
"is  the  lawful  heir." 

It  was  a  wonder  what  she  found  in  whatever 
he  said  ;  he  touched  with  every  word  the  spring 
of  her  friendly  joy.  "  That's  another  of  your 
lovely  old  things  —  I  adore  your  lawful  heirs  !  " 
She  appeared  to  have,  about  everything  that 
came  up,  a  general  lucid  vision  that  almost  glori- 
fied the  particular  case.  "  He  has  come  to  take 
possession  ?  " 

Chivers  accepted,  for  the  credit  of  the  house, 
this  sustaining  suggestion.  "  He's  a-taking  of  it 
now." 

This  evoked,  for  his  companion,  an  instantane- 
ous show.  "  What  does  he  do  and  how  does  he 
do  it?  Can't  I  see?"  She  was  all  impatience, 
but  she  dropped  to  disappointment  as  her  guide 
looked  blank.  "  There's  no  grand  fuss ?  " 

"  I  scarce  think  him,  mum,"  Chivers  with  pro- 


272  COVERING   END 

priety  hastened  to  respond,  "the  gentleman  to 
make  any  about  anything." 

She  had  to  resign  herself,  but  she  smiled  as  she 
thought.  "  Well,  perhaps  I  like  them  better 
when  they  don't !  "  She  had  clearly  a  great 
range  of  taste,  and  it  all  came  out  in  the  wistful- 
ness  with  which,  before  the  notice  apparently 
served  on  her,  she  prepared  to  make  way.  "  I 
also"  —  she  lingered  and  sighed  —  "have  taken 
possession  !  " 

Poor  Chivers  really  rose  to  her.  "  It  was  you, 
mum,"  he  smiled,  "  took  it  first !  " 

She  sadly  shook  her  head.  "Ah,  but  for  a 
poor  little  hour  !  He's  for  life." 

The  old  man  gave  up,  after  a  little,  with  equal 
depression,  the  pretence  of  dealing  with  such 
realities.  "  For  mine,  mum,  I  do  at  least  hope." 

She  made  again  the  circuit  of  the  great  place, 
picking  up  without  interest  the  jacket  she  had  on 
her  previous  entrance  laid  down.  "  I  shall  think 
of  you,  you  know,  here  together."  She  vaguely 
looked  about  her  as  for  anything  else  to  take ; 
then  abruptly,  with  her  eyes  again  on  Chivers  : 
"  Do  you  suppose  he'll  be  kind  to  you  ?  " 

His  hand,  in  his  trousers -pocket,  seemed  to 
turn  the  matter  over.  "  He  has  already  been, 
mum." 


COVERING   END  273 

"  Then  be  sure  to  be  so  to  him !  "  she  replied 
with  some  emphasis.  The  house-bell  sounded  as 
she  spoke,  giving  her  quickly  another  thought. 
"Is  that  his  bell?" 

drivers  was  hardly  less  struck.  "I  must  see 
whose  !  "  —  and  hurrying,  on  this,  to  the  front, 
he  presently  again  vanished. 

His  companion,  left  alone,  stood  a  minute  with 
an  air  in  which  happy  possession  was  oddly  and 
charmingly  mingled  with  desperate  surrender ; 
so  much  as  to  have  left  you  in  doubt  if  the  next 
of  her  lively  motions  were  curiosity  or  disgust. 
Impressed,  in  her  divided  state,  with  a  small 
framed  plaque  of  enamel,  she  impulsively  de- 
tached it  from  the  wall  and  examined  it  with 
hungry  tenderness.  Her  hovering  thought  was 
so  vivid  that  you  might  almost  have  traced  it  in 
sound.  "  Why,  bless  me  if  it  isn't  Limoges  !  I 
wish  awfully  I  were  a  lad  woman :  then,  I  do 
devoutly  hope,  I'd  just  quietly  take  it ! "  It 
testified  to  the  force  of  this  temptation  that 
on  hearing  a  sound  behind  her  she  started  like 
a  guilty  thing  ;  recovering  herself,  however,  and 
—  just,  of  course,  not  to  appear  at  fault  —  keep- 
ing the  object  familiarly  in  her  hand  as  she 
jumped  to  a  recognition  of  the  gentleman  who, 
coming  in  from  the  garden,  had  stopped  in 


274  COVBEING   END 

the  open  doorway.  She  gathered  indeed  from 
his  being  there  a  positive  advantage,  the  full  con- 
fidence of  which  was  already  in  her  charming 
tone.  "  Oh,  Captain  Yule,  I'm  delighted  to  meet 
you  !  It's  such  a  comfort  to  ask  you  if  I  may  !  " 

His  surprise  kept  him  an  instant  dumb,  but 
the  effort  not  too  closely  to  betray  it  appeared 
in  his  persuasive  inflection.  "If  you  'may,' 
madam ?" 

"Why,  just  be  here,  don't  you  know?  and 
poke  round ! "  She  presented  such  a  course  as 
almost  vulgarly  natural.  "Don't  tell  me  I  can't 
now,  because  I  already  have :  I've  been  upstairs 
and  downstairs  and  in  my  lady's  chamber  —  I 
won't  answer  for  it  even  perhaps  that  I've  not 
been  in  my  lord's !  I  got  round  your  lovely 
servant  —  if  you  don't  look  out  I'll  grab  him. 
If  you  don't  look  out,  you  know,  I'll  grab  every- 
thing." She  gave  fair  notice  and  went  on  with 
amazing  serenity  ;  she  gathered  positive  gaiety 
from  his  frank  stupefaction.  "That's  what  I 
came  over  for  —  just  to  lay  your  country  waste. 
Your  house  is  a  wild  old  dream ;  and  besides  " 
—  she  dropped,  oddly  and  quaintly,  into  real 
responsible  judgment  —  "you've  got  some  quite 
good  things.  Oh,  yes,  you  have  —  several :  don't 
coyly  pretend  you  haven't !  "  Her  familiarity 


COVERING  END  275 

took  these  flying  leaps,  and  she  alighted,  as  her 
victim  must  have  phrased  it  to  himself,  without 
turning  a  hair.  "Don't  you  know  you  have? 
Just  look  at  that !  "  She  thrust  her  enamel  be- 
fore him,  but  he  took  it  and  held  it  so  blankly, 
with  an  attention  so  absorbed  in  the  mere  woman, 
that  at  the  sight  of  his  manner  her  zeal  for  his 
interest  and  her  pity  for  his  detachment  again 
flashed  out.  "Don't  you  know  anything?  Why, 
it's  Limoges !  " 

Clement  Yule  simply  broke  into  a  laugh  — 
though  his  laugh  indeed  was  comprehensive. 
"It  seems  absurd,  but  I'm  not  in  the  least  ac- 
quainted with  my  house.  I've  never  happened 
to  see  it." 

She  seized  his  arm.  "Then  do  let  me  show 
it  to  you  !  " 

"I  shall  be  delighted."  His  laughter  had 
redoubled  in  a  way  that  spoke  of  his  previous 
tension;  yet  his  tone,  as  he  saw  Chivers  return 
breathless  from  the  front,  showed  that  he  had 
responded  sincerely  enough  to  desire  a  clear 
field.  "Who  in  the  world's  there?" 

The  old  man  was  full  of  it.     "  A  party  !  " 

"  A  party  ?  " 

Chivers  confessed  to  the  worst.  "Over  from 
Gossage  —  to  see  the  house." 


276  COVERING   END 

The  worst,  however,  clearly,  was  quite  good 
enough  for  their  companion,  who  embraced  the 
incident  with  sudden  enthusiasm.  "Oh,  let  me 
show  it !  "  But  before  either  of  the  men  could 
reply  she  had,  addressing  herself  to  Chivers,  one 
of  those  droll  drops  that  betrayed  the  quickness 
of  her  wit  and  the  freedom  of  her  fancy.  "  Dear 
me,  I  forgot  —  you  get  the  tips  !  But,  you  dear 
old  creature,"  she  went  on,  "  I'll  get  them,  too, 
and  I'll  simply  make  them  over  to  you."  She 
again  pressed  Yule  —  pressed  him  into  this  ser- 
vice. "  Perhaps  they'll  be  bigger  —  for  me !  " 

He  continued  to  be  highly  amused.  "I 
should  think  they'd  be  enormous  —  for  you! 
But  I  should  like,"  he  added  with  more  concen- 
tration—  "I  should  like  extremely,  you  know," 
to  go  over  with  you  alone." 

She  was  held  a  moment.     "Just  you  and  me ?  " 

"Just  you  and  me  —  as  you  kindly  proposed." 

She  stood  reminded ;  but,  throwing  it  off,  she 
had  her  first  inconsequence.  "  That  must  be  for 
after !" 

"  Ah,  but  not  too  late."  He  looked  at  his 
watch.  "I  go  back  tonight." 

"  Laws,   sir !  "    Chivers   irrepressibly  groaned. 

"  You  want  to  keep  him  ?  "  the  stranger  asked. 
Captain  Yule  turned  away  at  the  question,  but 


COVERING   END  277 

her  look  went  after  him,  and  she  found  herself, 
somehow,  instantly  answered.  "Then  I'll  help 
you,"  she  said  to  Chivers ;  "  and  the  oftener  we 
go  over  the  better." 

Something  further,  on  this,  quite  immaterial, 
but  quite  adequate,  passed,  while  the  young 
man's  back  was  turned,  between  the  two  others ; 
in  consequence  of  which  Chivers  again  appealed 
to  his  master.  "  Shall  I  show  them  straight  in,  sir  ?  " 

His  master,  still  detached,  replied  without 
looking  at  him.  "By  all  means  —  if  there's 
money  in  it !  "  This  was  jocose,  but  there  would 
have  been,  for  an  observer,  an  increase  of  hope 
in  the  old  man's  departing  step.  The  lady  had 
exerted  an  influence. 

She  continued,  for  that  matter,  with  a  start 
of  genial  remembrance,  to  exert  one  in  his  ab- 
sence. "  Oh,  and  I  promised  to  show  it  to  Miss 
Prodmore!  "  Her  conscience,  with  a  kind  smile 
for  the  young  person  she  named,  put  the  ques- 
tion to  Clement  Yule.  "  Won't  you  call  her  ?  " 

The  coldness  of  his  quick  response  made  it 
practically  none.  "  '  Call '  her  ?  Dear  lady,  I 
don't  know  her  !  " 

"  You  must,  then  —  she's  wonderful. "  The 
face  with  which  he  met  this  drew  from  the  dear 
lady  a  sharper  look ;  but,  for  the  aid  of  her  good- 


278  COVERING   END 

nature,  Cora  Prodmore,  at  the  moment  she  spoke, 
presented  herself  in  the  doorway  of  the  morning- 
room.  "  See  ?  She's  charming  !  "  The  girl,  with 
a  glare  of  recognition,  dashed  across  the  open  as 
if  under  heavy  fire ;  but  heavy  fire,  alas  —  the 
extremity  of  exposure  —  was  promptly  embodied 
in  her  friend's  public  embrace.  "Miss  Prod- 
more,"  said  this  terrible  friend,  "let  me  present 
Captain  Yule."  Never  had  so  great  a  gulf  been 
bridged  in  so  free  a  span.  "  Captain  Yule,  Miss 
Prodmore.  Miss  Prodmore,  Captain  Yule." 

There  was  stiffness,  the  cold  mask  of  terror, 
in  such  notice  as  either  party  took  of  this  dem- 
onstration, the  convenience  of  which  was  not 
enhanced  for  the  divided  pair  by  the  perception 
that  Mr.  Prodmore  had  now  followed  his  daugh- 
ter. Cora  threw  herself  confusedly  into  it  in- 
deed, as  with  a  vain  rebound  into  the  open. 
"  Papa,  let  me  '  present '  you  to  Mrs.  Gracedew. 
Mrs.  Gracedew,  Mr.  Prodmore.  Mr.  Prodmore, 
Mrs.  Gracedew." 

Mrs.  Gracedew,  with  a  free  salute  and  a  dis- 
tinct repetition,  took  in  Mr.  Prodmore  as  she  had 
taken  everything  else.  "  Mr.  Prodmore  "  —  oh, 
she  pronounced  him,  spared  him  nothing  of  him- 
self. "  So  happy  to  meet  your  daughter's  father. 
Your  daughter's  so  perfect  a  specimen." 


COVERING   END  279 

Mr.  Prodmore,  for  the  first  moment,  had  simply 
looked  large  and  at  sea  ;  then,  like  a  practical  man 
and  without  more  question,  had  quickly  seized  the 
long  perch  held  out  to  him  in  this  statement. 
"  So  perfect  a  specimen,  yes  !  "  —  he  seemed  to 
pass  it  on  to  his  young  friend. 

Mrs.  Gracedew,  if  she  observed  his  emphasis, 
drew  from  it  no  deterrence  ;  she  only  continued 
to  cover  Cora  with  a  gaze  that  kept  her  well  in 
the  middle.  "  So  fresh,  so  quaint,  so  droll !  " 

It  was  apparently  a  result  of  what  had  passed 
in  the  morning-room  that  Mr.  Prodmore  had 
grasped  afresh  the  need  for  effective  action,  which 
he  clearly  felt  he  did  something  to  meet  in  clutch- 
ing precipitately  the  helping  hand  popped  so  sud- 
denly out  of  space,  yet  so  beautifully  gloved  and  so 
pressingly  and  gracefully  brandished.  "  So  fresh, 
so  quaint,  so  droll !  "  —  he  again  gave  Captain 
Yule  the  advantage  of  the  stranger's  impression. 

To  what  further  appreciation  this  might  have 
prompted  the  lady  herself  was  not,  however,  just 
then  manifest ;  for  the  return  of  Chivers  had  been 
almost  simultaneous  with  the  advance  of  the 
Prodmores,  and  it  had  taken  place  with  forms  that 
made  it  something  of  a  circumstance.  There  was 
positive  pomp  in  the  way  he  preceded  several  per- 
sons of  both  sexes,  not  tourists  at  large,  but  simple 


280  COVERING   END 

sightseers  of  the  half -holiday  order,  plain  provin- 
cial folk  already,  on  the  spot,  rather  awestruck. 
The  old  man,  with  suppressed  pulls  and  prayers, 
had  drawn  them  up  in  a  broken  line,  and  the  habit 
of  more  peopled  years,  the  dull  drone  of  the  dead 
lesson,  sounded  out  in  his  prompt  beginning.  The 
party  stood  close,  in  this  manner,  on  one  side  of 
the  apartment,  while  the  master  of  the  house  and 
his  little  circle  were  grouped  on  the  other.  But 
as  Chivers,  guiding  his  squad,  reached  the  centre 
of  the  space,  Mrs.  Gracedew,  markedly  moved, 
quite  unreservedly  engaged,  came  slowly  forward 
to  meet  him.  "  This,  ladies  and  gentlemen,"  he 
mechanically  quavered,  "is  perhaps  the  most 
important  feature  —  the  grand  old  feudal,  baronial 
'all.  Being,  from  all  accounts,  the  most  ancient 
portion  of  the  edifice,  it  was  erected  in  the  very 
earliest  ages."  He  paused  a  moment,  to  mark  his 
effect,  then  gave  a  little  cough  which  had  become, 
obviously,  in  these  great  reaches  of  time,  an 
essential  part  of  the  trick.  "  Some  do  say,"  he 
dispassionately  remarked,  "  in  the  course  of  the 
fifteenth  century." 

Mrs.  Gracedew,  who  had  visibly  thrown  herself 
into  the  working  of  the  charm,  following  him  with 
vivid  sympathy  and  hanging  on  his  lips,  took  the 
liberty,  at  this,  of  quite  affectionately  pouncing  on 


COVERING   END  281 

him.  "  /say  in  the  fourteenth,  my  dear  —  you're 
robbing  us  of  a  hundred  years  !  " 

Her  victim  yielded  without  a  struggle.  "  I  do 
seem,  in  them  dark  old  centuries,  sometimes  to 
trip  a  little."  Yet  the  interruption  of  his  ancient 
order  distinctly  discomposed  him,  all  the  more  that 
his  audience,  gaping  with  a  sense  of  the  importance 
of  the  fine  point,  moved  in  its  mass  a  little  nearer. 
Thus  put  upon  his  honour,  he  endeavoured  to 
address  the  group  with  a  dignity  undiminished. 
"  The  Gothic  roof  is  much  admired,  but  the  west 
gallery  is  a  modern  addition." 

His  discriminations  had  the  note  of  culture,  but 
his  candour,  all  too  promptly,  struck  Mrs.  Grace- 
dew  as  excessive.  "  What  in  the  name  of  Methu- 
selah do  you  call  '  modern '  ?  It  was  here  at  the 
visit  of  James  the  First,  in  1611,  and  is  supposed 
to  have  served,  in  the  charming  detail  of  its  orna- 
ment, as  a  model  for  several  that  were  constructed 
in  his  reign.  The  great  fireplace,"  she  handsomely 
conceded,  "  is  Jacobean." 

She  had  taken  him  up  with  such  wondrous 
benignant  authority  —  as  if,  for  her  life,  if  they 
were  to  have  it,  she  couldn't  help  taking  care 
that  they  had  it  out  ;  she  had  interposed  with 
an  assurance  that  so  converted  her  —  as  by  the 
wave  of  a  great  wand,  the  motion  of  one  of  her 


282  COVERING  END 

own  free  arms  —  from  mere  passive  alien  to 
domesticated  dragon,  that  poor  Chivers  could 
only  assent  with  grateful  obeisances.  She  so 
plunged  into  the  old  book  that  he  had  quite 
lost  his  place.  The  two  gentlemen  and  the 
young  lady,  moreover,  were  held  there  by  the 
magic  of  her  manner.  His  own,  as  he  turned 
again  to  his  cluster  of  sightseers,  took  refuge 
in  its  last  refinement.  "The  tapestry  on  the 
left  Italian  —  the  elegant  wood- work  Flemish." 
Mrs.  Gracedew  was  upon  him  again.  "Ex- 
cuse me  if  I  just  deprecate  a  misconception. 
The  elegant  wood- work  Italian  —  the  tapestry 
on  the  left  Flemish."  Suddenly  she  put  it  to 
him  before  them  all,  pleading  as  familiarly  and 
gaily  as  she  had  done  when  alone  with  him,  and 
looking  now  at  the  others,  all  round,  gentry 
and  poor  folk  alike,  for  sympathy  and  support. 
She  had  an  idea  that  made  her  dance.  "  Do 
you  really  mind  if  /  just  do  it?  Oh,  I  know 
how  :  I  can  do  quite  beautifully  the  house- 
keeper last  week  at  Castle  Gaunt."  She  frater- 
nised with  the  company  as  if  it  were  a  game 
they  must  play  with  her,  though  this  first  stage 
sufficiently  hushed  them.  "How  do  you  do? 
Ain't  it  thrilling  ?  "  Then  with  a  laugh  as  free 
as  if,  for  a  disguise,  she  had  thrown  her  hand- 


COVEKING   END  283 

kerchief  over  her  head  or  made  an  apron  of 
her  tucked-up  skirt,  she  passed  to  the  grand 
manner.  "Keep  well  together,  please  —  we're 
not  doing  puss-in-the-corner.  I've  my  duty  to 
all  parties  —  I  can't  be  partial  to  one  !  " 

The  contingent  from  Gossage  had,  after  all, 
like  most  contingents,  its  spokesman  —  a  very 
erect  little  personage  in  a  very  new  suit  and  a 
very  green  necktie,  with  a  very  long  face  and 
upstanding  hair.  It  was  on  an  evident  sense 
of  having  been  practically  selected  for  encour- 
agement that  he,  in  turn,  made  choice  of  a 
question  which  drew  all  eyes.  "  How  many 
parties,  now,  can  you  manage  ?  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  was  superbly  definite.  "  Two. 
The  party  up  and  the  party  down."  Chivers 
gasped  at  the  way  she  dealt  with  this  liberty, 
and  his  impression  was  conspicuously  deepened 
as  she  pointed  to  one  of  the  escutcheons  in  the 
high  hall-window.  "  Observe  in  the  centre  com- 
partment the  family  arms."  She  did  take  his 
breath  away,  for  before  he  knew  it  she  had 
crossed  with  the  lightest  but  surest  of  gestures 
to  the  black  old  portrait,  on  the  opposite  wall, 
of  a  long-limbed  gentleman  in  white  trunk- 
hose.  "  And  observe  the  family  legs  !  "  Her 
method  was  wholly  her  own,  irregular  and 


284  COVERING   END 

broad  ;  she  flew,  familiarly,  from  the  pavement 
to  the  roof  and  then  dropped  from  the  roof  to 
the  pavement  as  if  the  whole  air  of  the  place 
were  an  element  in  which  she  floated.  "  Observe 
the  suit  of  armour  worn  at  Tewkesbury — ob- 
serve the  tattered  banner  carried  at  Blenheim." 
They  bobbed  their  heads  wherever  she  pointed, 
but  it  would  have  come  home  to  any  spectator 
that  they  saw  her  alone.  This  was  the  case 
quite  as  much  with  the  opposite  trio  —  the  case 
especially  with  Clement  Yule,  who  indeed  made 
no  pretence  of  keeping  up  with  her  signs.  It 
was  the  signs  themselves  he  looked  at  —  not  at 
the  subjects  indicated.  But  he  never  took  his 
eyes  from  her,  and  it  was  as  if,  at  last,  she  had 
been  peculiarly  affected  by  a  glimpse  of  his  atten- 
tion. All  her  own,  for  a  moment,  frankly  went 
back  to  him  and  was  immediately  determined  by 
it.  "  Observe,  above  all,  that  you're  in  one  of 
the  most  interesting  old  houses,  of  its  type,  in 
England;  for  which  the  ages  have  been  tender 
and  the  generations  wise  :  letting  it  change  so 
slowly  that  there's  always  more  left  than  taken 
— living  their  lives  in  it,  but  letting  it  shape 
their  lives  ! " 

Though  this  pretty  speech  had  been  unmistake- 
ably  addressed  to  the  younger  of  the  temporary 


COVERING   END  285 

occupants  of  Covering  End,  it  was  the  elder  who, 
on  the  spot,  took  it  up.  "A  most  striking  and 
appropriate  tribute  to  a  real  historical  monu- 
ment !  "  Mr.  Prodmore  had  a  natural  ease  that 
could  deal  handsomely  with  compliments,  and 
he  manifestly,  moreover,  like  a  clever  man,  saw 
even  more  in  such  an  explosion  of  them  than 
fully  met  the  ear.  "  You  do,  madam,  bring  the 
whole  thing  out !  " 

The  visitor  who  had  already  with  such  impu- 
nity ventured  had,  on  this,  a  loud  renewal  of  bold- 
ness, but  for  the  benefit  of  a  near  neighbour. 
"  Doesn't  she  indeed,  Jane,  bring  it  out  ? " 

Mrs.  Gracedew,  with  a  friendly  laugh,  caught 
the  words  in  their  passage.  "But  who  in  the 
world  wants  to  keep  it  in?  It  isn't  a  secret  — 
it  isn't  a  strange  cat  or  a  political  party !  "  The 
housekeeper,  as  she  talked,  had  already  dropped 
from  her;  her  sense  of  the  place  was  too  fresh 
for  control,  though  instead  of  half  an  hour  it 
might  have  taken  six  months  to  become  so  fond. 
She  soared  again,  at  random,  to  the  noble  spring 
of  the  roof.  Just  look  at  those  lovely  lines  !  " 
They  all  looked,  all  but  Clement  Yule,  and 
several  of  the  larger  company,  subdued,  over- 
whelmed, nudged  each  other  with  strange  sounds. 
Wherever  she  turned  Mrs.  Gracedew  appeared 


286  COVERING   END 

to  find  a  pretext  for  breaking  out.  "Just  look 
at  the  tone  of  that  glass,  and  the  gilding  of  that 
leather,  and  the  cutting  of  that  oak,  and  the 
dear  old  flags  of  the  very  floor."  It  came  back, 
came  back  easily,  her  impulse  to  appeal  to  the 
lawful  heir,  and  she  seemed,  with  her  smile  of 
universal  intelligence,  just  to  demand  the  charity 
of  another  moment  for  it.  "  To  look,  in  this 
place,  is  to  love !  " 

A  voice  from  the  party  she  had  in  hand  took 
it  up  with  an  artless  guffaw  that  resounded 
more  than  had  doubtless  been  meant  and  that, 
at  any  rate,  was  evidently  the  accompaniment 
of  some  private  pinch  applied  to  one  of  the  ladies. 
"  I  say  —  to  love  !  " 

It  was  one  of  the  ladies  who  very  properly 
replied.  "  It  depends  on  who  you  look  at !  " 

Mr.  Prodmore,  in  the  geniality  of  the  hour, 
made  his  profit  of  the  simple  joke.  "  Do  you 
hear  that,  Captain?  You  must  look  at  the  right 
person !  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  certainly  had  not  been  looking 
at  the  wrong  one.  "  I  don't  think  Captain  Yule 
cares.  He  doesn't  do  justice !  " 

Though  her  face  was  still  gay,  she  had  faltered, 
which  seemed  to  strike  the  young  man  even  more 
than  if  she  had  gone  on.  "  To  what,  madam  ?  " 


COVEEING   END  287 

Well,  on  the  chance  she  let  him  have  it.  "  To 
the  value  of  your  house." 

He  took  it  beautifully.  "  I  like  to  hear  you 
express  it !  " 

"  J  can't  express  it ! "  She  once  more  looked 
all  round,  and  so  much  more  gravely  than  she  had 
yet  done  that  she  might  have  appeared  in  trouble. 
She  tried  but,  with  a  sigh,  broke  down.  "  It's  too 
inexpressible  !  " 

This  was  a  view  of  the  case  to  which  Mr.  Prod- 
more,  for  his  own  reasons,  was  not  prepared  to 
assent.  Expression  and  formulation  were  what 
he  naturally  most  desired,  and  he  had  just  en- 
countered a  fountain  of  these  things  that  he 
couldn't  prematurely  suffer  to  fail  him.  "Do 
what  you  can  for  it,  madam.  It  would  bring  it 
quite  home." 

Thus  excited,  she  gave  with  sudden  sombre 
clearness  another  try.  "Well  —  the  value's  a 
fancy  value  I " 

Mr.  Prodmore,  receiving  it  as  more  than  he 
could  have  hoped,  turned  triumphant  to  his  young 
friend.  "  Exactly  what  I  told  you  !  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  explained  indeed  as  if  Mr.  Prod- 
more's  triumph  was  not  perhaps  exactly  what  she 
had  argued  for.  Still,  the  truth  was  too  great. 
"When  a  thing's  unique,  it's  unique  !  " 


288  COVERING   END 

That  was  every  bit  Mr.  Prodmore  required. 
"It's  unique!" 

This  met,  moreover,  the  perception  of  the  gen- 
tleman in  the  green  necktie.  "  It's  unique  !  " 
They  all,  in  fact,  demonstratively — almost  vocif- 
erously now  —  caught  the  point. 

Mrs.  Gracedew,  finding  herself  so  sustained, 
and  still  with  her  eyes  on  the  lawful  heirs,  put  it 
yet  more  strongly.  "It's  worth  anything  you 
like." 

What  was  this  but  precisely  what  Mr.  Prod- 
more  had  always  striven  to  prove  ?  "  Anything 
you  like  !  "  he  richly  reverberated. 

The  pleasant  discussion  and  the  general  inter- 
est seemed  to  bring  them  all  together.  "  Twenty 
thousand  now  ?  "  one  of  the  gentlemen  from  Gos- 
sage  archly  inquired  —  a  very  young  gentleman 
with  an  almost  coaxing  voice,  who  blushed  im- 
mensely as  soon  as  he  had  spoken. 

He  blushed  still  more  at  the  way  Mrs.  Grace- 
dew  faced  him.  "  I  wouldn't  look  at  twenty 
thousand  !  " 

Mr.  Prodmore,  on  the  other  hand,  was  propor- 
tionately uplifted.  "  She  wouldn't  look  at  twenty 
thousand  ! "  he  announced  with  intensity  to  the 
Captain. 

The  visitor  who  had  been  the  first  to  speak 


COVERING  END  289 

gave  a  shrewder  guess.  "  Thirty,  then,  as  it 
stands  ?  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  looked  more  and  more  respon- 
sible ;  she  communed  afresh  with  the  place ;  but 
she  too  evidently  had  her  conscience.  "  It  would 
be  giving  it  away  !  " 

Mr.  Prodmore,  at  this,  could  scarcely  contain 
himself.  "  It  would  be  giving  it  away  !  " 

The  second  speaker  had  meanwhile  conceived 
the  design  of  showing  that,  though  still  crim- 
son, he  was  not  ashamed.  "  You'd  hold  out  for 
forty ?" 

Mrs.  Gracedew  required  a  minute  to  answer  — 
a  very  marked  minute  during  which  the  whole 
place,  pale  old  portraits  and  lurking  old  echoes 
and  all,  might  have  made  you  feel  how  much 
depended  on  her ;  to  the  degree  that  the  con- 
sciousness in  her  face  became  finally  a  reason  for 
her  not  turning  it  to  Gossage.  "  Fifty  thousand, 
Captain  Yule,  is  what  I  think  I  should  propose." 

If  the  place  had  seemed  to  listen  it  might 
have  been  the  place  that,  in  admiring  accents 
from  the  gentleman  with  the  green  tie,  took  up 
the  prodigious  figure.  "Fifty  thousand  pound  !  " 

It  was  echoed  in  a  high  note  from  the  lady 
he  had  previously  addressed.  "  Fifty  thousand  !  " 

Yet  it  was  Mr.  Prodmore  who  caught  it  up 


290  COVERING   END 

loudest  and  appeared  to  make  it  go  furthest. 
"  Fifty  thousand  —  fifty  thousand  !  "  Mrs.  Grace- 
dew  had  put  him  in  such  spirits  that  he  found 
on  the  spot,  indicating  to  her  his  young  friend, 
both  the  proper  humour  and  the  proper  rigour 
for  any  question  of  what  anyone  might  "pro- 
pose." "He'll  never  part  with  the  dear  old 
home  !  " 

.  Mrs.  Gracedew  could  match  at  least  the  con- 
fidence. "  Then  I'll  go  over  it  again  while  I 
have  the  chance."  Her  own  humour  enjoined 
that  she  should  drop  into  the  housekeeper,  in 
the  perfect  tone  of  which  character  she  addressed 
herself  once  more  to  the  party.  "  We  now  pass 
to  the  grand  staircase."  She  gathered  her  band 
with  a  brave  gesture,  but  before  she  had  fairly 
impelled  them  to  the  ascent  she  heard  herself 
rather  sharply  challenged  by  Captain  Yule,  who, 
during  the  previous  scene,  had  uttered  no  sound, 
yet  had  remained  as  attentive  as  he  was  impene- 
trable. "  Please  let  them  pass  without  you  ! " 

She  was  taken  by  surprise.  "And  stay  here 
with  you?" 

"If  you'll  be  so  good.  I  want  to  speak  to 
you."  Turning  then  to  Chivers  and  frowning 
on  the  party,  he  delivered  himself  for  the  first 
time  as  a  person  in  a  position.  "For  God's 
sake,  remove  them  !  " 


COVERING  END  291 

The  old  man,  at  this  blast  of  impatience,  in- 
stantly fluttered  forward.  "We  now  pass  to 
the  grand  staircase." 

They  all  passed,  Chivers  covering  their  scat- 
tered ascent  as  a  shepherd  scales  a  hillside  with 
his  flock;  but  it  became  evident  during  the 
manoauvre  that  Cora  Prodmore  was  quite  out 
of  tune.  She  had  been  standing  beyond  and 
rather  behind  Captain  Yule  ;  but  she  now  moved 
quickly  round  and  reached  her  new  friend's  right. 
"  Mrs.  Gracedew,  may  /  speak  to  you  ?  " 

Her  father,  before  the  reply  could  come,  had 
taken  up  the  place.  '•'•After  Captain  Yule,  my 
dear."  He  was  in  a  state  of  positively  polished 
lucidity.  "  You  must  make  the  most  —  don't 
you  see  ?  —  of  the  opportunity  of  the  others  !  " 

He  waved  her  to  the  staircase  as  one  who 
knew  what  he  was  about,  but,  while  the  young 
man,  turning  his  back,  moved  consciously  and 
nervously  away,  the  girl  renewed  her  effort  to 
provoke  Mrs.  Gracedew  to  detain  her.  It  hap- 
pened, to  her  sorrow,  that  this  lady  appeared 
for  the  moment,  to  the  detriment  of  any  free 
attention,  to  be  absorbed  in  Captain  Yule's  man- 
ner ;  so  that  Cora  could  scarce  disengage  her 
without  some  air  of  invidious  reference  to  it. 
Recognising  as  much,  she  could  only  for  two 


292  COVERING   END 

seconds,  but  with  great  yearning,  parry  her  own 
antagonist.  "  She'll  help  me,  I  think,  papa  !  " 

"  That's  exactly  what  strikes  me,  love  !  "  he 
cheerfully  replied.  "  But  Til  help  you  too  !  " 
He  gave  her,  toward  the  stairs,  a  push  propor- 
tioned both  to  his  authority  and  to  her  weight ; 
and  while  she  reluctantly  climbed  in  the  wake  of 
the  visitors,  he  laid  on  Mrs.  Gracedew's  arm,  with 
a  portentous  glance  at  Captain  Yule,  a  hand  of 
commanding  significance.  "  Just  pile  it  on !  " 

Her  attention  came  back  —  she  seemed  to  see. 
"  He  doesn't  like  it  ?  " 

"Not  half  enough.     Bring  him  round." 

Her  eyes  rested  again  on  their  companion,  who 
had  fidgeted  further  away  and  who  now,  with 
his  hands  in  his  pockets  and  unaware  of  this 
private  passage,  stood  again  in  the  open  door- 
way and  gazed  into  the  grey  court.  Something 
in  the  sight  determined  her.  "I'll  bring  him 
round." 

But  at  this  moment  Cora,  pausing  half-way  up, 
sent  down  another  entreaty.  "  Mrs.  Gracedew, 
will  you  see  me  ?  " 

The  charming  woman  looked  at  her  watch. 
"  In  ten  minutes,"  she  smiled  back. 

Mr.  Prodmore,  bland  and  assured,  looked  at  his 
own.  "  You  could  put  him  through  in  five  —  but 


COVERING   END  293 

I'll  allow  you  twenty.  There ! "  he  decisively 
cried  to  his  daughter,  whom  he  quickly  rejoined 
and  hustled  on  her  course.  Mrs.  Gracedew 
kissed  after  her  a  hand  of  vague  comfort. 


IV 


THE  silence  that  reigned  between  the  pair 
might  have  been  registered  as  embarrassing  had 
it  lasted  a  trifle  longer.  Yule  had  continued  to 
turn  his  back,  but  he  faced  about,  though  he  was 
distinctly  grave,  in  time  to  avert  an  awkward- 
ness. "  How  do  you  come  to  know  so  much  about 
my  house  ?  " 

She  was  as  distinctly  not  grave.  "How  do 
you  come  to  know  so  little  ?  " 

"  It's  not  my  fault,"  he  said  very  gently.  "  A 
particular  combination  of  misfortunes  has  forbid- 
den me,  till  this  hour,  to  come  within  a  mile  of 
it." 

These  words  evidently  struck  her  as  so  ex- 
actly the  right  ones  to  proceed  from  the  lawful 
heir  that  such  a  felicity  of  misery  could  only 
quicken  her  interest.  He  was  plainly  as  good  in 
his  way  as  the  old  butler  —  the  particular  combi- 
nation of  misfortunes  corresponded  to  the  life- 
long service.  Her  interest,  none  the  less,  in  its 
294 


COVERING   END  295 

turn,  could  only  quicken  her  pity,  and  all  her 
emotions,  we  have  already  seen,  found  prompt 
enough  expression.  What  could  any  expression 
do  indeed  now  but  mark  the  romantic  reality  ? 
"  Why,  you  poor  thing  !  "  —  she  came  toward 
him  on  the  weary  road.  "Now  that  you've  got 
here  I  hope  at  least  you'll  stay."  Their  inter- 
course must  pitch  itself  —  so  far  as  she  was 
concerned  —  in  some  key  that  would  make  up 
for  things.  "  Do  make  yourself  comfortable. 
Don't  mind  me." 

Yule  looked  a  shade  less  serious.  "  That's 
exactly  what  I  wanted  to  say  to  you!" 

She  was  struck  with  the  way  it  came  in. 
"  Well,  if  you  had  been  haughty,  I  shouldn't 
have  been  quite  crushed,  should  I  ? " 

The  young  man's  gravity,  at  this,  completely 
yielded.  "  I'm  never  haughty  —  oh,  no  !  " 

She  seemed  even  more  amused.  "  Fortunately 
then,  as  I'm  never  crushed.  I  don't  think," 
she  added,  "that  I'm  really  as  crushable  as  you." 

The  smile  with  which  he  received  this  failed 
to  conceal  completely  that  it  was  something  of 
a  home  thrust.  "  Aren't  we  really  all  crushable 
—  by  the  right  thing?" 

She  considered  a  little.  "  Don't  you  mean 
rather  by  the  wrong  ?  " 


296  COVERING   END 

He  had  got,  clearly,  a  trifle  more  accustomed 
to  her  being  extraordinary.  "Are  you  sure  we 
always  know  them  apart  ?  " 

She  weighed  the  responsibility.  "I  always 
do.  Don't  you?" 

"  Not  quite  every  time !  " 

"Oh,"  she  replied,  "I  don't  think,  thank 
goodness,  we  have  positively  '  every  time '  to  dis- 
tinguish." 

"Yet  we  must  always  act,"  he  objected. 

She  turned  this  over;  then  with  her  wonder- 
ful living  look,  "I'm  glad  to  hear  it,"  she  ex- 
claimed, "because,  I  fear,  I  always  do!  You'll 
certainly  think,"  she  added  with  more  gravity, 
« that  I've  taken  a  line  today  !  " 

"  Do  you  mean  that  of  mistress  of  the  house  ? 
Yes — you  do  seem  in  possession!" 

"  You  don't !  "  she  honestly  answered ;  after 
which,  as  to  attenuate  a  little  the  rigour  of  the 
charge:  "You  don't  comfortably  look  it,  I 
mean.  You  don't  look"  —  she  was  very  serious 
—  "as  I  want  you  to." 

It  was  when  she  was  most  serious  that  she 
was  funniest.  "  How  do  you  '  want '  me  to 
look?" 

She  endeavoured,  while  he  watched  her,  to 
make  up  her  mind,  but  seemed  only,  after  an 


COVERING  END  297 

instant,  to  recognise  a  difficulty.  "When  you 
look  at  me,  you're  all  right !  "  she  sighed.  It 
was  an  obstacle  to  her  lesson,  and  she  cast  her 
eyes  about.  "Look  at  that  chimneypiece." 

"Well ?"  he  inquired  as  his  eyes  came 

back  from  it. 

"You  mean  to  say  it  isn't  lovely?" 

He  returned  to  it  without  passion  —  gave  a 
vivid  sign  of  mere  disability.  "  I'm  sure  I 
don't  know.  I  don't  mean  to  say  anything. 
I'm  a  rank  outsider." 

It  had  an  instant  effect  on  her  —  she  almost 
pounced  upon  him.  "  Then  you  must  let  me 
put  you  up  !  " 

"Up  to  what?" 

"  Up  to  everything !  "  —  his  levity  added  to 
her  earnestness.  "You  were  smoking  when 
you  came  in,"  she  said  as  she  glanced  about. 
"Where's  your  cigarette?" 

The  young  man  appreciatively  produced  an- 
other. "I  thought  perhaps  I  mightn't  —  here." 

"You  may  everywhere." 

He  bent  his  head  to  the  information.  "  Every- 
where." 

She  laughed  at  his  docility,  yet  could  only 
wish  to  presume  upon  it.  "It's  a  rule  of  the 
house !  " 


298  COVERING  END 

He  took  in  the  place  with  greater  pleasure. 
«  What  delightful  rules  !  " 

"  How  could  such  a  house  have  any  others  ?  " 
—  she  was  already  launched  again  in  her  brave 
relation  to  it.  "  I  may  go  up  just  once  more  — 
mayn't  I  —  to  the  long  gallery  ?  " 

How  could  he  tell?     "The  long  gallery?" 

With  an  added  glow  she  remembered.  "I 
forgot  you've  never  seen  it.  Why,  it's  the  lead- 
ing thing  about  you !  "  She  was  full,  on  the 
spot,  of  the  pride  of  showing  it.  "  Come 
right  up !  " 

Clement  Yule,  half  seated  on  a  table  from 
which  his  long  left  leg  nervously  swung,  only 
looked  at  her  and  smiled  and  smoked.  "  There's 
a  party  up." 

She  remembered  afresh.  "  So  we  must  be  the 
party  down  ?  Well,  you  must  give  me  a  chance. 
That  long  gallery's  the  principal  thing  I  came 
over  for." 

She  was  strangest  of  all  when  she  explained. 
"Where  in  heaven's  name  did  you  come  over 
from?" 

"Missoura  Top,  where  I'm  building  —  just  in 
this  style.  •  I  came  for  plans  and  ideas,"  Mrs. 
Gracedew  serenely  pursued.  "I  felt  I  must  look 
right  at  you." 


COVERING   END  299 

"But  what  did  you  know  about  us?" 

She  kept  it  a  moment  as  if  it  were  too  good 
to  give  him  all  at  once.  "  Everything !  " 

He  seemed  indeed  almost  afraid  to  touch  it. 
"At  'Missoura  Top'?" 

"Why  not?  It's  a  growing  place  —  forty 
thousand  the  last  census."  She  hesitated;  then 
as  if  her  warrant  should  be  slightly  more  per- 
sonal: "My  husband  left  it  to  me." 

The  young  man  presently  changed  his  posture. 
"You're  a  widow?" 

Nothing  was  wanting  to  the  simplicity  of  her 
quiet  assent.  "  A  very  lone  woman."  Her  face, 
for  a  moment,  had  the  vision  of  a  long  distance. 
"My  loneliness  is  great  enough  to  want  some- 
thing big  to  hold  it  —  and  my  taste  good  enough 
to  want  something  beautiful.  You  see,  I  had 
your  picture." 

Yule's  innocence  made  a  movement.     "  Mine  ?  " 

Her  smile  reassured  him;  she  nodded  toward 
the  main  entrance.  "  A  water  colour  I  chanced 
on  in  Boston." 

"In  Boston?" 

She  stared.  "Haven't  you  heard  of  Boston 
either?" 

"Yes — but  what  has  Boston  heard  of  me?" 

"  It  wasn't  '  you,'  unfortunately  —  it  was  your 


300  COVERING   END 

divine  south  front.  The  drawing  struck  me  so 
that  I  got  you  up  —  in  the  books." 

He  appeared,  however,  rather  comically,  but 
half  to  make  it  out,  or  to  gather  at  any  rate 
that  there  was  even  more  of  it  than  he  feared. 
"  Are  we  in  the  books  ?  " 

"  Did  you  never  discover  it  ? "  Before  his 
blankness,  the  dim  apprehension  in  his  fine 
amused  and  troubled  face  of  how  much  there 
was  of  it,  her  frank,  gay  concern  for  him  sprang 
again  to  the  front.  "Where  in  heaven's  name, 
Captain  Yule,  have  you  come  over  from  ?  " 

He  looked  at  her  very  kindly,  but  as  if  scarce 
expecting  her  to  follow.  "  The  East  End  of 
London." 

She  had  followed  perfectly,  he  saw  the  next 
instant,  but  she  had  by  no  means  equally  ac- 
cepted. "What  were  you  doing  there?" 

He  could  only  put  it,  though  a  little  over- 
consciously,  very  simply.  "Working,  you  see. 
When  I  left  the  army  —  it  was  much  too  slow, 
unless  one  was  personally  a  whirlwind  of  war 
—  I  began  to  make  out  that,  for  a  fighting 
man " 

"There's  always,"  she  took  him  up,  "some- 
body or  other  to  go  for  ? " 

He  considered  her,  while  he  smoked,  with  more 


COVERING   END  301 

confidence ;  as  if  she  might  after  all  understand. 
"  The  enemy,  yes  —  everywhere  in  force.  I  went 
for  him :  misery  and  ignorance  and  vice  —  injus- 
tice and  privilege  and  wrong.  Such  as  you  see 
me " 

"  You're  a  rabid  reformer  ?  "  —  she  understood 
beautifully.  "  I  wish  we  had  you  at  Missoura 
Top !  " 

He  literally,  for  a  moment,  in  the  light  of  her 
beauty  and  familiarity,  appeared  to  measure  his 
possible  use  there ;  then,  looking  round  him 
again,  announced  with  a  sigh  that,  predicament 
for  predicament,  his  own  would  do.  "  I  fear  my 
work  is  nearer  home.  I  hope,"  he  continued, 
"  since  you're  so  good  as  to  seem  to  care,  to  per- 
form a  part  of  that  work  in  the  next  House  of 
Commons.  My  electors  have  wanted  me " 

"And  you've  wanted  them"  she  lucidly  put 
in,  "and  that  has  been  why  you  couldn't  come 
down." 

"  Yes,  for  all  this  last  time.  And  before  that, 
from  my  childhood  up,  there  was  another  reason." 
He  took  a  few  steps  away  and  brought  it  out  as 
rather  a  shabby  one.  "A  family  feud." 

She  proved  to  be  quite  delighted  with  it. 
"  Oh,  I'm  so  glad  —  I  hoped  I'd  strike  a  '  feud ' ! 
That  rounds  it  off,  and  spices  it  up,  and,  for  the 


302  COVERING  END 

heartbreak  with  which  I  take  leave  of  you,  just 
neatly  completes  the  fracture  !  "  Her  reference 
to  her  going  seemed  suddenly,  on  this,  to  bring 
her  back  to  a  sense  of  proportion  and  propriety, 
and  she  glanced  about  once  more  for  some  wrap 
or  reticule.  This,  in  turn,  however,  was  another 
recall.  "Must  I  really  wait — to  go  up?" 

He  had  watched  her  movement,  had  changed 
colour,  had  shifted  his  place,  had  tossed  away, 
plainly  unwitting,  a  cigarette  but  half  smoked ; 
and  now  he  stood  in  her  path  to  the  staircase  as 
if,  still  unsatisfied,  he  abruptly  sought  a  way  to 
turn  the  tables.  "  Only  till  you  tell  me  this  :  if 
you  absolutely  meant,  awhile  ago,  that  this  old 
thing  is  so  precious." 

She  met  his  doubt  with  amazement  and  his 
density  with  compassion.  "  Do  you  literally 
need  I  should  say  it?  Can  you  stand  here  and 
not  feel  it?"  If  he  had  the  misfortune  of  ban- 
daged eyes,  she  could  at  least  rejoice  in  her  own 
vision,  which  grew  intenser  with  her  having  to 
speak  for  it.  She  spoke  as  with  a  new  rush  of 

her  impression.  "It's  a  place  to  love " 

Yet  to  say  the  whole  thing  was  not  easy. 

"To  love ?"  he  impatiently  insisted. 

"  Well,  as  you'd  love  a  person  !  "  If  that  was 
saying  the  whole  thing,  saying  the  whole  thing 


COVERING  END  303 

could  only  be  to  go.  A  sound  from  the  "  party 
up  "  came  down  at  that  moment,  and  she  took  it 
so  clearly  as  a  call  that,  for  a  sign  of  separation, 
she  passed  straight  to  the  stairs.  "  Good-bye  !  " 

The  young  man  let  her  reach  the  foot,  but 
then,  though  the  greatest  width  of  the  hall  now 
divided  them,  spoke,  anxiously  and  nervously,  as 
if  the  point  she  had  just  made  brought  them  still 
more  together.  "  I  think  I  '  feel '  it,  you  know  ; 
but  it's  simply  you  —  your  presence,  as  I  may 
say,  and  the  remarkable  way  you  put  it  —  that 

make  me.  I'm  afraid  that  in  your  absence " 

He  struck  a  match  to  smoke  again. 

It  gave  her  time  apparently  to  make  out  some- 
thing to  pause  for.  "  In  my  absence  ?  " 

He  lit  his  cigarette.     "I  may  come  back " 

"  Come  back  ?  "  she  took  him  almost  sharply 
up.  "I  should  like  to  see  you  not!" 

He  smoked  a  moment.  "I  mean  to  my  old 
idea " 

She  had  quite  turned  round  on  him  now. 
"Your  old  idea ?" 

He  faced  her  over  the  width  still  between 
them.  "Well  —  that  one  could  give  it  up." 

Her  stare,  at  this,  fairly  filled  the  space. 
"  Give  up  Covering  ?  How  in  the  world  —  or 
why?" 


304  COVERING   END 

"Because  I  can't  afford  to  keep  it." 

It  brought  her  straight  back,  but  only  half- 
way :  she  pulled  up  short  as  at  a  flash.  "  Can't 
you  let  it  ?  " 

Again  he  smoked  before  answering.  "  Let  it 
to  you  ?  " 

She  gave  a  laugh,  and  her  laugh  brought  her 
nearer.  "  I'd  take  it  in  a  minute  !  " 

Clement  Yule  remained  grave.  "  I  shouldn't 
have  the  face  to  charge  you  a  rent  that  would 
make  it  worth  one's  while,  and  I  think  even  you, 
dear  lady  "  —  his  voice  just  trembled  as  he  risked 
that  address  —  "wouldn't  have  the  face  to  offer 
me  one."  He  paused,  but  something  in  his  as- 
pect and  manner  checked  in  her  now  any  impulse 
to  read  his  meaning  too  soon.  "My  lovely  in- 
heritance is  Dead  Sea  fruit.  It's  mortgaged  for 
all  it's  worth  and  I  haven't  the  means  to  pay 
the  interest.  If  by  a  miracle  I  could  scrape  the 
money  together,  it  would  leave  me  without  a 
penny  to  live  on."  He  puffed  his  cigarette 
profusely.  "  So  if  I  find  the  old  home  at  last  — 
I  lose  it  by  the  same  luck  !  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  had  hung  upon  his  words,  and 
she  seemed  still  to  wait,  in  visible  horror,  for 
something  that  would  improve  on  them.  But 
when  she  had  to  take  them  for  his  last,  "  I  never 


COVERING  END  305 

heard  of  anything  so  awful !  "  she  broke  out. 
"  Do  you  mean  to  say  you  can't  arrange ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,"  he  promptly  replied,  "  an  arrange- 
ment—  if  that  be  the  name  to  give  it  —  has  been 
definitely  proposed  to  me." 

"What's  the  matter, then ?"  —  she  had  dropped 
into  relief.  "  For  heaven's  sake,  you  poor  thing, 
definitely  accept  it ! " 

He  laughed,  though  with  little  joy,  at  her 
sweet  simplifications.  "  I've  made  up  my  mind 
in  the  last  quarter  of  an  hour  that  I  can't.  It's 
such  a  peculiar  case." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  frankly  wondered ;  her  bias 
was  clearly  sceptical.  "  How  peculiar ?  " 

He  found  the  measure  difficult  to  give.  "  Well 
—  more  peculiar  than  most  cases." 

Still  she  was  not  satisfied.  "  More  peculiar 
than  mine  ?  " 

"  Than  yours  ?  "  —  Clement  Yule  knew  nothing 
about  that. 

Something,  at  this,  in  his  tone,  his  face  —  it 
might  have  been  his  "  British  "  density  —  seemed 
to  pull  her  up.  "I  forgot — you  don't  know 
mine.  No  matter.  What  is  yours  ?  " 

He  took  a  few  steps  in  thought.  "  Well,  the 
fact  that  I'm  asked  to  change." 

"  To  change  what  ?  " 


306  COVERING   END 

He  wondered  how  he  could  put  it ;  then  at 
last,  on  his  own  side,  simplified.  "  My  atti- 
tude." 

"  Is  that  all  ?  "  —  she  was  relieved  again. 
"Well,  you're  not  a  statue." 

"  No,  I'm  not  a  statue  ;  but  on  the  other  hand, 
don't  you  see?  I'm  not  a  windmill."  There 
was  good-humour,  none  the  less,  in  his  rigour. 
"  The  mortgages  I  speak  of  have  all  found  their 
way,  like  gregarious  silly  sheep,  into  the  hands 
of  one  person  —  a  devouring  wolf,  a  very  rich,  a 
very  sharp  man  of  money.  He  holds  me  in  this 
manner  at  his  mercy.  He  consents  to  make 
things  comfortable  for  me,  but  he  requires  that, 
in  return,  I  shall  do  something  for  him  that  — 
don't  you  know?  —  rather  sticks  in  my  crop." 

It  appeared  on  this  light  showing  to  stick  for 
a  moment  even  in  Mrs.  Gracedew's.  "Do  you 
mean  something  wrong?" 

He  had  not  a  moment's  hesitation.  "  Exceed- 
ingly so ! " 

She  turned  it  over  as  if  pricing  a  Greek  Aldus. 
"  Anything  immoral  ?  " 

"  Yes  —  I  may  literally  call  it  immoral. " 

She  courted,  however,  frankly  enough,  the 
strict  truth.  "Top  bad  to  tell?" 

He   indulged  in   another  pensive  fidget,  then 


COVEKING   END  307 

left  her  to  judge.  "He  wants  me  to  give 
up "  Yet  again  he  faltered. 

"To  give  up  what?"  What  could  it  be,  she 
appeared  to  ask,  that  was  barely  nameable  ? 

He  quite  blushed  to  her  indeed  as  he  came  to 
the  point.  "  My  fundamental  views." 

She  was  disappointed  —  she  had  waited  for 
more.  "  Nothing  but  them  ?  " 

He  met  her  with  astonishment.  "Surely 
they're  quite  enough,  when  one  has  unfortu- 
nately"—  he  rather  ruefully  smiled — "so  very 
many  !  " 

She  laughed  aloud ;  this  was  frankly  so  odd 
a  plea.  "Well,  Tve  a  neat  collection  too,  but 
I'd  'swap,'  as  they  say  in  the  West,  the  whole 
set !  "  She  looked  about  the  hall  for  some- 
thing of  equivalent  price ;  after  which  she 
pointed,  as  it  caught  her  eye,  to  the  great  cave 
of  the  fireplace.  "  I'd  take  that  set !  " 

The  young  man  scarcely  followed.  "  The  fire- 
irons?" 

"  For  the  whole  fundamental  lot ! "  She 
gazed  with  real  yearning  at  the  antique  group. 
"They're  three  hundred  years  old.  Do  you 
mean  to  tell  me  your  wretched  '  views ' ?  " 

"Have  anything  like  that  age?  No,  thank 
God,"  Clement  Yule  laughed,  "my  views  — 


308  COVERING   END 

wretched  as  you  please !  —  are  quite  in  their 
prime !  They're  a  hungry  little  family  that 
has  got  to  be  fed.  They  keep  me  awake  at 
night." 

"  Then  you  must  make  up  your  sleep  !  "  Her 
impatience  grew  with  her  interest.  "Listen  to 
me!" 

"  That  would  scarce  be  the  way  !  "  he  returned. 
But  he  added  more  sincerely  :  "  You  must  surely 
see  a  fellow  can't  chuck  his  politics." 

"  *  Chuck '  them ?  " 

«  Well  —  sacrifice  them. " 

"I'd  sacrifice  mine,"  she  cried,  "for  that  old 
fire-back  with  your  arms !  "  He  glanced  at  the 
object  in  question,  but  with  such  a  want  of  in- 
telligence that  she  visibly  resented  it.  "See 
how  it  has  stood  !  " 

"  See  how  I've  stood ! "  he  answered  with 
spirit.  "I've  glowed  with  a  hotter  fire  than 
anything  in  any  chimney,  and  the  warmth  and 
light  I  diffuse  have  attracted  no  little  atten- 
tion. How  can  I  consent  to  reduce  them  to 
the  state  of  that  desolate  hearth?" 

His  companion,  freshly  struck  with  the  fine 
details  of  the  desolation,  had  walked  over  to 
the  chimney-corner,  where,  lost  in  her  deeper 
impression,  she  lingered  and  observed.  At  last 


COVEKING   END  309 

she  turned  away  with  her  impatience  controlled. 
"  It's  magnificent !  " 

"The  fire-back?" 

"  Everything  —  everywhere.  I  don't  under- 
stand your  haggling." 

He  hesitated.  "  That's  because  you're  igno- 
rant." Then  seeing  in  the  light  of  her  eye 
that  he  had  applied  to  her  the  word  in  the  lan- 
guage she  least  liked,  he  hastened  to  attenuate. 
"I  mean  of  what's  behind  my  reserves." 

She  was  silent  in  a  way  that  made  their  talk 
more  of  a  discussion  than  if  she  had  spoken. 
"  What  is  behind  them  ?  "  she  presently  asked. 

"  Why,  my  whole  political  history.  Every- 
thing I've  said,  everything  I've  done.  My 
scorching  addresses  and  letters,  reproduced  in 
all  the  papers.  I  needn't  go  into  details,  but 
I'm  a  pure,  passionate,  pledged  Radical." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  looked  him  full  in  the  face. 
"  Well,  what  if  you  are  ?  " 

He  broke  into  mirth  at  her  tone.  "  Simply 
this  —  that  I  can't  therefore,  from  one  day  to 
the  other,  pop  up  at  Gossage  in  the  purple 
pomp  of  the  opposite  camp.  There's  a  want  of 
transition.  It  may  be  timid  of  me  —  it  may 
be  abject.  But  I  can't." 

If  she   was  not  yet  prepared   to   contest  she 


310  COVEEING   END 

was  still  less  prepared  to  surrender  it,  and  she 
confined  herself  for  the  instant  to  smoothing 
down  with  her  foot  the  corner  of  an  old  rug. 
"Have  you  thought  very  much  about  it?" 

He  was  vague.     "  About  what  ?  " 

"About  what  Mr.  Prodmore  wants  you  to 
do."  ' 

He  flushed  up.  "Oh,  then,  you  know  it's 
he?" 

"I'm  not,"  she  said,  still  gravely  enough,  "of 
an  intelligence  absolutely  infantile." 

"  You're  the  cleverest  Tory  I've  ever  met !  " 
he  laughed.  "I  didn't  mean  to  mention  my 

friend's  name,  but  since  you've  done  so !  " 

He  gave  up  with  a  shrug  his  scruple. 

Oh,  she  had  already  cleared  the  ground  of 
it !  "  It's  he  who's  the  devouring  wolf  ?  It's 
he  who  holds  your  mortgages  ?  " 

The  very  lucidity  of  her  interest  just  checked 
his  assent.  "He  holds  plenty  of  others,  and 
he  treats  me  very  handsomely." 

She  showed  of  a  sudden  an  inconsequent 
face.  "  Do  you  call  that  handsome  —  such  a 
condition?  " 

He  shed  surprise.  "  Why,  I  thought  it  was 
just  the  condition  you  could  meet." 

She   measured   her  inconsistency,  but  was  not 


COVERING.  END  311 

abashed.  "  We're  not  talking  of  what  I  can 
meet."  Yet  she  found  also  a  relief  in  dropping 
the  point.  "  Why  doesn't  he  stand  himself  ?  " 

"Well,  like  other  devouring  wolves,  he's  not 
personally  adored." 

"Not  even,"  she  asked,  "when  he  offers  such 
liberal  terms?" 

Clement  Yule  had  to  explain.  "  I  dare  say  he 
doesn't  offer  them  to  everyone." 

"Only  to  you?"  —  at  this  she  quite  sprang. 
"  You  are  personally  adored  ;  you  will  be  still 
more  if  you  stand  ;  and  that,  you  poor  lamb,  is 
why  he  wants  you ! " 

The  young  man,  obviously  pleased  to  find  her 
after  all  more  at  one  with  him,  accepted  grace- 
fully enough  the  burden  her  sympathy  imposed. 
"  I'm  the  bearer  of  my  name,  I'm  the  representa- 
tive of  my  family  ;  and  to  my  family  and  my 
name  —  since  you've  led  me  to  it — this  coun- 
tryside has  been  for  generations  indulgently 
attached." 

She  listened  to  him  with  a  sentiment  in  her 
face  that  showed  how  now,  at  last,  she  felt  herself 
deal  with  the  lawful  heir.  She  seemed  to  per- 
ceive it  with  a  kind  of  passion.  "You  do  of 
course  what  you  will  with  the  countryside !  " 

«Yes"  —  he  went  with  her — "if  we  do  it  as 


312  COVERING   END 

genuine  Yules.  I'm  obliged  of  course  to  grant 
you  that  your  genuine  Yule's  a  Tory  of  Tories. 
It's  Mr.  Prodmore's  belief  that  I  should  carry 
Gossage  in  that  character,  but  in  that  character 
only.  They  won't  look  at  me  in  any  other." 

It  might  have  taxed  a  spectator  to  say  in  what 
character  Mrs.  Gracedew,  on  this,  for  a  little,  con- 
sidered him.  "  Don't  be  too  sure  of  people's  not 
looking  at  you  !  " 

He  blushed  again,  but  he  laughed.  "  We  must 
leave  out  my  personal  beauty." 

"  We  can't ! "  she  replied  with  decision. 
"Don't  we  take  in  Mr.  Prodmore's?" 

Captain  Yule  was  not  prepared.  "  You  call 
him  beautiful?" 

"  Hideous. "  She  settled  it ;  then  pursued  her 
investigation.  "  What's  the  extraordinary  inter- 
est that  he  attaches ?  " 

"  To  the  return  of  a  Tory  ?  "  Here  the  young 
man  was  prepared.  "Oh,  his  desire  is  born  of 
his  fear  —  his  terror  on  behalf  of  Property,  which 
he  sees,  somehow,  with  an  intensely  Personal, 
with  a  quite  colossal  'P.'  He  has  a  great  deal  of 
that  article,  and  very  little  of  anything  else." 

Mrs.  Gracedew,  accepting  provisionally  his  dem- 
onstration, had  one  of  her  friendly  recalls.  "  Do 
you  call  that  nice  daughter  *  very  little '  ?  " 


COVERING  END  313 

The  young  man  looked  quite  at  a  loss.  "  Is  she 
very  big  ?  I  really  didn't  notice  her  —  and  more- 
over she's  just  a  part  of  the  Property.  He  thinks 
things  are  going  too  far." 

She  sat  straight  down  on  a  stiff  chair  ;  on 
which,  with  high  distinctness  :  "Well,  they  are  !  " 

He  stood  before  her  in  the  discomposure  of  her 
again  thus  appearing  to  fail  him.  "Aren't  you 
then  a  lover  of  justice?" 

"  A  passionate  one !  "  She  sat  there  as  upright 
as  if  she  held  the  scales.  "  Where's  the  justice  of 
your  losing  this  house  ? "  Generous  as  well  as 
strenuous,  all  her  fairness  thrown  out  by  her  dark 
old  high-backed  seat,  she  put  it  to  him  as  from 
the  judicial  bench.  "To  keep  Covering,  you 
must  carry  Gossage  !  " 

The  odd  face  he  made  at  it  might  have  betrayed 
a  man  dazzled.  "  As  a  renegade  ?  " 

"  As  a  genuine  Yule.  What  business  have  you 
to  be  anything  else  ?  "  She  had  already  arranged 
it  all.  "You  must  close  with  Mr.  Prodmore  — 
you  must  stand  in  the  Tory  interest."  She  hung 
fire  a  moment ;  then  as  she  got  up  :  "  If  you  will, 
I'll  conduct  your  canvass  !  " 

He  stared  at  the  distracting  picture.  "That 
puts  the  temptation  high  !  " 

But  she  brushed  the  mere  picture  away.     "  Ah, 


314  COVERING  END 

don't  look  at  me  as  if  J  were  the  temptation  ! 
Look  at  this  sweet  old  human  home,  and  feel  all 
its  gathered  memories.  Do  you  want  to  know 
what  they  do  to  me  ?  "  She  took  the  survey  her- 
self again,  as  if  to  be  really  sure.  "  They  speak 
to  me  for  Mr.  Prodmore." 

He  followed  with  a  systematic  docility  the  di- 
rection of  her  eyes,  but  as  if  with  the  result  only 
of  its  again  coming  home  to  him  that  there  was 
no  accounting  for  what  things  might  do.  "  Well, 
there  are  others  than  these,  you  know,"  he  good- 
naturedly  pleaded — "  things  for  which  I've  spoken, 
repeatedly  and  loudly,  to  others  than  you."  The 
very  manner  of  his  speaking  on  such  occasions 
appeared,  for  that  matter,  now  to  come  back  to 
him.  "  One's  '  human  home '  is  all  very  well,  but 
the  rest  of  one's  humanity  is  better  ! "  She  gave, 
at  this,  a  droll  soft  wail ;  she  turned  impatiently 
away.  "  I  see  you're  disgusted  with  me,  and  I'm 
sorry  ;  but  one  must  take  one's  self  as  circum- 
stances and  experience  have  made  one,  and  its 
not  my  fault,  don't  you  know  ?  if  they've  made 
me  a  very  modern  man.  I  see  something  else  in 
the  world  than  the  beauty  of  old  show-houses  and 
the  glory  of  old  show-families.  There  are  thou- 
sands of  people  in  England  who  can  show  no 
houses  at  all,  and  I  don't  feel  it  utterly  shameful 
to  share  their  poor  fate  !  " 


COVERING   END  315 

She  had  moved  away  with  impatience,  and  it 
was  the  advantage  of  this  for  her  that  the  back 
she  turned  prevented  him  from  seeing  how  in- 
tently she  listened.  She  seemed  to  continue  to 
listen  even  after  he  had  stopped  ;  but  if  that 
gave  him  a  sense  of  success,  he  might  have  been 
checked  by  the  way  she  at  last  turned  round  with 
a  sad  and  beautiful  headshake.  "We  share  the 
poor  fate  of  humanity  whatever  we  do,  and  we  do 
something  to  help  and  console  when  we've  some- 
thing precious  to  show.  What  on  earth  is  more 
precious  than  what  the  ages  have  slowly  wrought  ? 
They've  trusted  us,  in  such  a  case,  to  keep  it  — 
to  do  something,  in  our  turn,  for  them."  She 
shone  out  at  him  as  if  her  contention  had  the 
evidence  of  the  noonday  sun,  and  yet  in  her  gen- 
erosity she  superabounded  and  explained.  "It's 
such  a  virtue,  in  anything,  to  have  lasted;  it's 
such  an  honour,  for  anything,  to  have  been  spared. 
To  all  strugglers  from  the  wreck  of  time  hold  out 
a  pitying  hand  !  " 

Yule,  on  this  argument,  —  of  a  strain  which 
even  a  good  experience  of  debate  could  scarce  have 
prepared  him  to  meet,  —  had  not  a  congruous  re- 
joinder absolutely  pat,  and  his  hesitation  unfort- 
unately gave  him  time  to  see  how  soon  his 
companion  made  out  that  what  had  touched  him 


316  COVERING   END 

most  in  it  was  her  particular  air  in  presenting  it. 
She  would  manifestly  have  preferred  he  should 
have  been  floored  by  her  mere  moral  reach  ;  yet 
he  was  aware  that  his  own  made  no  great  show  as 
he  took  refuge  in  general  pleasantry.  "  What  a 
plea  for  looking  backward,  dear  lady,  to  come 
from  Missoura  Top  !  " 

"We're  making  a  Past  at  Missoura  Top  as  fast 
as  ever  we  can,  and  I  should  like  to  see  you  lay 
your  hand  on  an  hour  of  the  one  we've  made  !  It's 
a  tight  fit,  as  yet,  I  grant,"  she  said,  "  and  that's 
just  why  I  like,  in  yours,  to  find  room,  don't  you 
see  ?  to  turn  round.  You're  in  it,  over  here,  and 
you  can't  get  out ;  so  just  make  the  best  of  that 
and  treat  the  thing  as  part  of  the  fun  !  " 

"  The  whole  of  the  fun,  to  me,"  the  young  man 
replied,  "is  in  hearing  you  defend  it  !  It's  like 
your  defending  hereditary  gout  or  chronic  rheu- 
matism and  sore  throat  —  the  things  I  feel  aching 
in  every  old  bone  of  these  walls  and  groaning  in 
every  old  draught  that,  I'm  sure,  has  for  cen- 
turies blown  through  them." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  looked  as  if  no  woman  could  be 
shaken  who  was  so  prepared  to  be  just  all  round. 
"  If  there  be  aches  —  there  may  be  —  you're  here 
to  soothe  them,  and  if  there  be  draughts  —  there 
must  be  !  —  you're  here  to  stop  them  up.  And 


COVERING  END  31T 

do  you  know  what  Pm  here  for  ?  If  I've  come 
so  far  and  so  straight,  I've  almost  wondered  my- 
self. I've  felt  with  a  kind  of  passion  —  but  now 
I  see  why  I've  felt."  She  moved  about  the  hall 
with  the  excitement  of  this  perception,  and,  sepa- 
rated from  him  at  last  by  a  distance  across  which 
he  followed  her  discovery  with  a  visible  suspense, 
she  brought  out  the  news.  "I'm  here  for  an  act 
of  salvation  —  I'm  here  to  avert  a  sacrifice  !  " 

So  they  stood  a  little,  with  more,  for  the 
minute,  passing  between  them  than  either  really 
could  say.  She  might  have  flung  down  a  glove 
that  he  decided  on  the  whole,  passing  his  hand 
over  his  head  as  the  seat  of  some  confusion,  not 
to  pick  up.  Again,  but  flushed  as  well  as  smil- 
ing, he  sought  the  easiest  cover.  "  You're  here, 
I  think,  madam,  to  be  a  memory  for  all  my 
future !  " 

Well,  she  was  willing,  she  showed  as  she  came 
nearer,  to  take  it,  at  the  worst,  for  that.  "  You'll 
be  one  for  mine,  if  I  can  see  you  by  that  hearth. 
Why  do  you  make  such  a  fuss  about  changing 
your  politics  ?  If  you'd  come  to  Missoura  Top, 
you'd  change  them  quick  enough ! "  Then,  as 
she  saw  further  and  struck  harder,  her  eyes  grew 
deep,  her  face  even  seemed  to  pale,  and  she  paused, 
splendid  and  serious,  with  the  force  of  her  plea. 


318  COVERING   END 

"  What  do  politics  amount  to,  compared  with 
religions  ?  Parties  and  programmes  come  and  go, 
but  a  duty  like  this  abides.  There's  nothing  you 
can  break  with  "  —  she  pressed  him  closer,  ringing 
out  —  "that  would  be  like  breaking  here.  The 
very  words  are  violent  and  ugly  —  as  much  a 
sacrilege  as  if  you  had  been  trusted  with  the  key 
of  the  temple.  This  is  the  temple  —  don't  pro- 
fane it !  Keep  up  the  old  altar  kindly  —  you 
can't  set  up  a  new  one  as  good.  You  must  have 
beauty  in  your  life,  don't  you  see  ?  —  that's  the 
only  way  to  make  sure  of  it  for  the  lives  of  others. 
Keep  leaving  it  to  them,  to  all  the  poor  others," 
she  went  on  with  her  bright  irony,  "and  heaven 
only  knows  what  will  become  of  it !  Does  it  take 
one  of  us  to  feel  that  ? — to  preach  you  the  truth  ? 
Then  it's  good,  Captain  Yule,  we  come  right  over 
—  just  to  see,  you  know,  what  you  may  happen  to 
be  about.  We  know,"  she  went  on  while  her 
sense  of  proportion  seemed  to  play  into  her  sense 
of  humour,  "  what  we  haven't  got,  worse  luck  ;  so 
that  if  you've  happily  got  it  you've  got  it  also  for 
us.  You've  got  it  in  trust,  you  see,  and  oh  !  we 
have  an  eye  on  you.  You've  had  it  so  for  me,  all 
these  dear  days  that  I've  been  drinking  it  in,  that, 
to  be  grateful,  I've  wanted  regularly  to  do  some- 
thing." With  which,  as  if  in  the  rich  confidence 


COVERING  END  319 

of  having  convinced  him,  she  came  so  near  as 
almost  to  touch  him.  "  Tell  me  now  I  shall  have 
done  it  —  I  shall  have  kept  you  at  your  post  I  " 

If  he  moved,  on  this,  immediately  further,  it 
was  with  the  oddest  air  of  seeking  rather  to  study 
her  remarks  at  his  ease  than  to  express  an  inde- 
pendence of  them.  He  kept,  to  this  end,  his 
face  averted  —  he  was  so  completely  now  in 
intelligent  possession  of  her  own.  The  sacrifice 
in  question  carried  him  even  to  the  door  of  the 
court,  where  he  once  more  stood  so  long  engaged 
that  the  persistent  presentation  of  his  back  might 
at  last  have  suggested  either  a  confession  or  a 
request. 

Mrs.  Gracedew,  meanwhile,  a  little  spent  with 
her  sincerity,  seated  herself  again  in  the  great 
chair,  and  if  she  sought,  visibly  enough,  to  read 
a  meaning  into  his  movement,  she  had  as  little 
triumph  for  one  possible  view  of  it  as  she  had 
resentment  for  the  other.  The  possibility  that 
he  yielded  left  her  after  all  as  vague  in  respect 
to  a  next  step  as  the  possibility  that  he  merely 
wished  to  get  rid  of  her.  The  moments  elapsed 
without  her  abdicating ;  and  indeed  when  he 
finally  turned  round  his  expression  was  an  equal 
check  to  any  power  to  feel  she  might  have  won. 
"  You  have,"  he  queerly  smiled  at  her,  "  a  stand- 


320  COVERING   END 

point  quite  your  own  and  a  style  of  eloquence 
that  the  few  scraps  of  parliamentary  training  I've 
picked  up  don't  seem  at  all  to  fit  me  to  deal 
with.  Of  course  I  don't  pretend,  you  know, 
that  I  don't  care  for  Covering." 

That,  at  all  events,  she  could  be  glad  to  hear, 
if  only  perhaps  for  the  tone  in  it  that  was  so 
almost  comically  ingenuous.  But  her  relief  was 
reasonable  and  her  exultation  temperate.  "  You 
haven't  even  seen  it  yet."  She  risked,  however, 
a  laugh.  "  Aren't  you  a  bit  afraid  ?  " 

He  took  a  minute  to  reply,  then  replied  — 
as  if  to  make  it  up  —  with  a  grand  collapse. 
"Yes;  awfully.  But  if  I  am,"  he  hastened  in 
decency  to  add,  "it  isn't  only  Covering  that 
makes  me." 

This  left  his  friend  apparently  at  a  loss. 
"What  else  is  it?" 

"Everything.  But  it  doesn't  in  the  least 
matter,"  he  loosely  pursued.  "You  may  be 
quite  correct.  When  we  talk  of  the  house  your 
voice  comes  to  me  somehow  as  the  wind  in  its 
old  chimneys." 

Her  amusement  distinctly  revived.  "I  hope 
you  don't  mean  I  roar  I  " 

He  blushed  again;  there  was  no  doubt  he 
was  confused.  "No  —  nor  yet  perhaps  that  you 


COVERING   END  321 

whistle !  I  don't  believe  the  wind  does  either, 
here.  It  only  whispers,"  he  sought  gracefully 
to  explain;  "and  it  sighs " 

"And  I  hope,"  she  broke  in,  "that  it  some- 
times laughs  !  " 

The  sound  she  gave  only  made  him,  as  he 
looked  at  her,  more  serious.  "Whatever  it 
does,  it's  all  right." 

"  All  right  ?  "  —  they  were  sufficiently  together 
again  for  her  to  lay  her  hand  straight  on  his 
arm.  "  Then  you  promise  ?  " 

"Promise  what?" 

He  had  turned  as  pale  as  if  she  hurt  him, 
and  she  took  her  hand  away.  "To  meet  Mr. 
Prodmore." 

"Oh,  dear,  no;  not  yet!" — he  quite  recov- 
ered himself.  "I  must  wait  —  I  must  think." 

She  looked  disappointed,  and  there  was  a 
momentary  silence.  "When  have  you  to  an- 
swer him  ?  " 

"  Oh,  he  gives  me  time  ! "  Clement  Yule 
spoke  very  much  as  he  might  have  said,  "Oh, 
in  two  minutes  !  " 

"  I  wouldn't  give  you  time,"  Mrs.  Gracedew 
cried  with  force  —  "I'd  give  you  a  shaking! 
For  God's  sake,  at  any  rate"  —  and  she  really 
tried  to  push  him  off  —  "  go  upstairs  !  " 


322  COVERING  END 

"  And  literally  find  the  dreadful  man  ?  "  This 
was  so  little  his  personal  idea  that,  distinctly 
dodging  her  pressure,  he  had  already  reached 
the  safe  quarter. 

But  it  befell  that  at  the  same  moment  she 
saw  Cora  reappear  on  the  upper  landing  —  a 
circumstance  that  promised  her  a  still  better 
conclusion.  "  He's  coming  down  !  " 

Cora,  in  spite  of  this  announcement,  came 
down  boldly  enough  without  him  and  made 
directly  for  Mrs.  Gracedew,  to  whom  her  eyes 
had  attached  themselves  with  an  undeviating 
glare.  Her  plain  purpose  of  treating  this  lady 
as  an  isolated  presence  allowed  their  companion 
perfect  freedom  to  consider  her  arrival  with 
sharp  alarm.  His  disconcerted  stare  seemed 
for  a  moment  to  balance;  it  wandered,  gave 
a  wild  glance  at  the  open  door,  then  searched 
the  ascent  of  the  staircase,  in  which,  apparently, 
it  now  found  a  coercion.  "  I'll  go  up !  "  he 
gasped ;  and  he  took  three  steps  at  a  time. 


THE  girl  threw  herself,  in  her  flushed  eagerness, 
straight  upon  the  wonderful  lady.  "I've  come 
back  to  you  —  I  want  to  speak  to  you  !  "  The 
need  had  been  a  rapid  growth,  but  it  was  clearly 
immense.  "  May  I  confide  in  you  ?  " 

Her  instant  overflow  left  Mrs.  Gracedew  both  as- 
tonished and  amused.  "  You  too  ?  "  she  laughed. 
"  Why  it  is  good  we  come  over !  " 

"  It  is,  indeed  !  "  Cora  gratefully  echoed.  "  You 
were  so  very  kind  to  me  and  seemed  to  think  me 
so  curious." 

The  mirth  of  her  friend  redoubled.  "  Well,  I 
loved  you  for  it,  and  it  was  nothing  moreover  to 
what  you  thought  me  !  " 

Miss  Prodmore  found,  for  this,  no  denial  — 
she  only  presented  her  frank  high  colour.  "I 
loved  you.  But  I'm  the  worst !  "  she  generously 
added.  "  And  I'm  solitary." 

"  Ah,  so  am  I ! "  Mrs.  Gracedew  declared  with 
gaiety,  but  with  emphasis.  "  A  very  queer  thing 


324  COVERING  END 

always  is  solitary  !  But,  since  we  have  that  link, 
by  all  means  confide." 

"  Well,  I  was  met  here  by  tremendous  news." 
Cora  produced  it  with  a  purple  glow.  "  He  wants 
me  to  marry  him  !  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  looked  amiably  receptive,  but  as 
if  she  failed  as  yet  to  follow.  " '  He'  wants  you  ?  " 

"  Papa,  of  course.     He  has  settled  it !  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  was  still  vague.  "Settled 
what?" 

"  Why,  the  whole  question.  That  I  must  take 
him." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  seemed  to  frown  at  her  own 
scattered  wits.  "  But,  my  dear,  take  whom  ?  " 

The  girl  looked  surprised  at  this  lapse  of  her 
powers.  "  Why,  Captain  Yule,  who  just  went 
up." 

"  Oh !  "  said  Mrs.  Gracedew  with  a  full  stare. 
"  Oh  !  "  she  repeated,  looking  straight  away. 

"I  thought  you  would  know,"  Cora  gently 
explained. 

Her  friend's  eyes,  with  a  kinder  light  now, 
came  back  to  her.  "  I  didn't  know."  Mrs.  Grace- 
dew  looked,  in  truth,  as  if  that  had  been  suffi- 
ciently odd,  and  seemed  also  to  wonder  at  two  or 
three  things  more.  It  all,  however,  broke  quickly 
into  a  question.  "  Has  Captain  Yule  asked  you  ?  " 


COVERING   END  325 

"  No,  but  he  will "  —  Cora  was  clear  as  a  bell. 
"  He'll  do  it  to  keep  the  house.  It's  mortgaged 
to  papa,  and  Captain  Yule  buys  it  back." 

Her  friend  had  an  illumination  that  was  rapid 
for  the  way  it  spread.  "  By  marrying  you  ?  "  she 
quavered. 

Cora,  under  further  parental  instruction,  had 
plainly  mastered  the  subject.  "  By  giving  me  his 
name  and  his  position.  They're  awfully  great, 
and  they're  the  price,  don't  you  see  ?  "  she  mod- 
estly mentioned.  "My  price.  Papa's  price. 
Papa  wants  them." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  had  caught  hold ;  yet  there 
were  places  where  her  grasp  was  weak,  and  she 
had,  strikingly,  begun  again  to  reflect.  "  But 
his  name  and  his  position,  great  as  they  may  be, 
are  his  dreadful  politics  !  " 

Cora  threw  herself  with  energy  into  this  ad- 
vance. "  You  know  about  his  dreadful  politics  ? 
He's  to  change  them,"  she  recited,  "to  get  me. 
And  if  he  gets  me " 

"He  keeps  the  house?"  —  Mrs.  Gracedew 
snatched  it  up. 

Cora  continued  to  show  her  schooling.  "  I  go 
with  it  —  he's  to  have  us  both.  But  only,"  she 
admonishingly  added,  "if  he  changes.  The 
question  is  —  will  he  change  ?  " 


326  COVERING  END 

Mrs.  Gracedew  appeared  profoundly  to  enter- 
tain it.  "  I  see.  Will  he  change  ?  " 

Cora's  consideration  of  it  went  even  further. 
"Has  he  changed?" 

It  went  —  and  the  effect  was  odd  —  a  little 
too  far  for  her  companion,  in  whom,  just  dis- 
cernibly,  it  had  touched  the  spring  of  impa- 
tience. "  My  dear  child,  how  in  the  world 
should  J  know  ?  " 

But  Cora  knew  exactly  how  anyone  would 
know.  "He  hasn't  seemed  to  care  enough  for 
the  house.  Does  he  care?" 

Mrs.  Gracedew  moved  away,  passed  over  to 
the  fireplace,  and  stood  a  moment  looking  at 
the  old  armorial  fire-back  she  had  praised  to  its 
master  —  yet  not,  it  must  be  added,  as  if  she 
particularly  saw  it.  Then  as  she  faced  about : 
"  You  had  better  ask  him  !  " 

They  stood  thus  confronted,  with  the  fine  old 
interval  between  them,  and  the  girl's  air  was 
for  a  moment  that  of  considering  such  a  course. 
"  If  he  does  care,"  she  said  at  last,  "  he'll 
propose." 

Mrs.  Gracedew,  from  where  she  stood  in  rela- 
tion to  the  stairs,  saw  at  this  point  the  subject 
of  their  colloquy  restored  to  view  :  Captain 
Yule  was  just  upon  them  —  he  had  turned  the 


COVERING  END  327 

upper  landing.  The  sight  of  him  forced  from 
her  in  a  flash  an  ejaculation  that  she  tried,  how- 
ever, to  keep  private  — "  He  does  care  !  "  She 
passed  swiftly,  before  he  reached  them,  back  to 
the  girl  and,  in  a  quick  whisper,  but  with  full 
conviction,  let  her  have  it :  "  He'll  propose  !  " 

Her  movement  had  made  her  friend  aware, 
and  the  young  man,  hurrying  down,  was  now 
in  the  hall.  Cora,  at  his  hurry,  looked  dismay 
— "  Then  I  fly  ! "  With  which,  casting  about 
for  a  direction,  she  reached  the  door  to  the 
court. 

Captain  Yule,  however,  at  this  result  of  his 
return,  expressed  instant  regret.  "  I  drive  Miss 
Prodmore  away !  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew,  more  quickly  still,  eased  off 
the  situation.  "  It's  all  right !  "  She  had  em- 
braced both  parties  with  a  smile,  but  it  was 
most  liberal  now  for  Cora.  "Do  you  mind, 
one  moment?"  —  it  conveyed,  unmistakeably,  a 
full  intelligence  and  a  fine  explanation.  "I've 
something  to  say  to  Captain  Yule." 

Cora  stood  in  the  doorway,  robust  against  the 
garden-light,  and  looking  from  one  to  the  other. 
"Yes  —  but  I've  also  something  more  to  say  to 
you." 

"  Do  you  mean  now  ?  "  the  young  man  asked. 


d2»  COVERING   END 

It  was  the  first  time  he  had  spoken  to  her, 
and  her  hesitation  might  have  signified  a 
maidenly  flutter.  "No — but  before  she  goes." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  took  it  amiably  up.  "  Come 
back,  then ;  I'm  not  going."  And  there  was 
both  dismissal  and  encouragement  in  the  way 
that,  as  on  the  occasion  of  the  girl's  former 
retreat,  she  blew  her  a  familiar  kiss.  Cora,  still 
with  her  face  to  them,  waited  just  enough  to 
show  that  she  took  it  without  a  response  ;  then, 
with  a  quick  turn,  dashed  out,  while  Mrs.  Grace- 
dew  looked  at  their  visitor  in  vague  surprise. 
"What's  the  matter  with  her?" 

She  had  turned  away  as  soon  as  she  spoke, 
moving  as  far  from  him  as  she  had  moved  a  few 
moments  before  from  Cora.  The  silence  that, 
as  he  watched  her,  followed  her  question  would 
have  been  seen  by  a  spectator  to  be  a  hard  one 
for  either  to  break.  "  I  don't  know  what's  the 
matter  with  her,"  he  said  at  last ;  "  I'm  afraid  I 
only  know  what's  the  matter  with  me.  It  will 
doubtless  give  you  pleasure  to  learn,"  he  added, 
"that  I've  closed  with  Mr.  Prodmore." 

It  was  a  speech  that,  strangely  enough,  seemed 
but  half  to  dissipate  the  hush.  Mrs.  Gracedew 
reached  the  great  chimney  again ;  again  she 
stood  there  with  her  face  averted  ;  and  when  she 


COVERING    END  329 

finally  replied  it  was  in  other  words  than  he 
might  have  supposed  himself  naturally  to  in- 
spire. "I  thought  you  said  he  gave  you  time." 

"  Yes ;  but  you  produced  just  now  so  deep  an 
effect  on  me  that  I  thought  best  not  to  take 
any."  He  appeared  to  listen  to  a  sound  from 
above,  and,  for  a  moment,  under  this  impulse,  his 
eyes  travelled  about  almost  as  if  he  were  alone. 
Then  he  completed,  with  deliberation,  his  state- 
ment. "  I  came  upon  him  right  there,  and  I 
burnt  my  ships." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  continued  not  to  meet  his  face. 
"  You  do  what  he  requires  ?  " 

The  young  man  was  markedly,  consciously 
caught.  "I  do  what  he  requires.  I  felt  the 
tremendous  force  of  all  you  said  to  me." 

She  turned  round  on  him  now,  as  if  perhaps 
with  a  slight  sharpness,  the  face  of  responsibility 
—  even,  it  might  be,  of  reproach.  "So  did  I  — 
or  I  shouldn't  have  said  it !  " 

It  was  doubtless  this  element  of  justification  in 
her  tone  that  drew  from  him  a  laugh  a  tiny  trifle 
dry.  "  You're  perhaps  not  aware  that  you  wield  an 
influence  of  which  it's  not  too  much  to  say " 

But  he  paused  at  the  important  point  so  long 
that  she  took  him  up.  "  To  say  what  ?  " 

"  Well,  that  it's  practically  irresistible  !  " 


330  COVERING    END 

It  sounded  a  little  as  if  it  had  not  been  what  he 
first  meant ;  but  it  made  her,  none  the  less,  still 
graver  and  just  faintly  ironical.  "  You've  given 
me  the  most  flattering  proof  of  my  influence  that 
I've  ever  enjoyed  in  my  life  !  " 

He  fixed  her  very  hard,  now  distinctly  so 
mystified  that  he  could  only  wonder  what  dif- 
ferent recall  of  her  previous  attitude  she  would 
have  looked  for.  "  This  was  inevitable,  dear 
madam,  from  the  moment  you  had  converted 
me  —  and  in  about  three  minutes  too! — into  the 
absolute  echo  of  your  raptures." 

Nothing  was,  indeed,  more  extraordinary  than 
her  air  of  having  suddenly  forgotten  them.  "  My 
1  raptures '  ?  " 

He  was  amazed.     "Why,  about  my  home." 

He  might  look  her  through  and  through,  but 
she  had  no  eyes  for  himself,  though  she  had  now 
quitted  the  fireplace  and  finally  recognised  this 
allusion.  "  Oh,  yes  —  your  home  !  "  From  where 
had  she  come  back  to  it  ?  "  It's  a  nice  tattered, 
battered  old  thing."  This  account  of  it  was  the 
more  shrunken  that  her  observation,  even  as  she 
spoke,  freshly  went  the  rounds.  "  It  has  defects 
of  course"  —  with  this  renewed  attention  they 
appeared  suddenly  to  strike  her.  They  had 
popped  out,  conspicuous,  and  for  a  little  it  might 


COVERING   END  331 

have  been  a  matter  of  conscience.  However,  her 
conscience  dropped.  "But  it's  no  use  mention- 
ing them  now !  " 

They  had  half  an  hour  earlier  been  vividly 
present  to  himself,  but  to  see  her  thus  oddly 
pulled  up  by  them  was  to  forget  on  the  spot 
the  ground  he  had  taken.  "I'm  particularly 
sorry,"  he  returned  with  some  spirit,  "that  you 
didn't  mention  them  before  !  " 

At  this  imputation  of  inconsequence,  of  a 
levity  not,  after  all,  without  its  excuse,  Mrs. 
Gracedew  was  reduced,  in  keeping  her  resent- 
ment down,  to  an  effort  not  quite  successfully 
disguised.  It  was  in  a  tone,  nevertheless,  all  the 
more  mild  in  intention  that  she  reminded  him 
of  where  he  had  equally  failed.  "If  you  had 
really  gone  over  the  house,  as  I  almost  went  on 
my  knees  to  you  to  do,  you  might  have  discov- 
ered some  of  them  yourself  ! " 

"  How  can  you  say  that,"  the  young  man 
asked  with  heat,  "  when  I  was  precisely  in  the 
very  act  of  it?  It  was  just  because  I  was  that 
the  first  person  I  met  above  was  Mr.  Prodmore ; 
on  which,  feeling  that  I  must  come  to  it  sooner 
or  later,  I  simply  gave  in  to  him  on  the  spot 
—  yielded  him,  to  have  it  well  over,  the  whole 
of  his  point." 


332  COVEKING   END 

She  listened  to  this  account  of  the  matter  as 
she  might  have  gazed,  from  afar,  at  some  queer 
object  that  was  scarce  distinguishable.  It  left 
her  a  moment  in  the  deepest  thought,  but  she 
presently  recovered  her  tone.  "Let  me  then 
congratulate  you  on  at  last  knowing  what  you 
want !  " 

But  there  were,  after  all,  he  instantly  showed, 
no  such  great  reasons  for  that.  "  I  only  know 
it  so  far  as  you  know  it !  I  struck  while  the 
iron  was  hot  —  or  at  any  rate  while  the  hammer 
was." 

"Of  course  I  recognise"  —  she  adopted  his 
image  with  her  restored  gaiety  — "  that  it  can 
rarely  have  been  exposed  to  such  a  fire.  I 
blazed  up,  and  I  know  that  when  I  burn " 

She  had  pulled  up  with  the  foolish  sense  of 
this.  "When  you  burn?" 

"Well,  I  do  it  as  Chicago  does." 

He  also  could  laugh  out  now.  "  Isn't  that 
usually  down  to  the  ground  ?  " 

Meeting  his  laugh,  she  threw  up  her  light 
arms.  "  As  high  as  the  sky  !  "  Then  she  came 
back,  as  with  a  scruple,  to  the  real  ques- 
tion. "I  suppose  you've  still  formalities  to  go 
through." 

"  With  Mr.  Prodmore  ?  "     Well,  he  would  sup- 


COVERING   END  333 

pose  it  too  if  she  liked.  "  Oh,  endless,  tiresome 
ones,  no  doubt !  " 

This  sketch  of  them  made  her  wonder.  "  You 
mean  they'll  take  so  very,  very  long  ?  " 

He  seemed  after  all  to  know  perfectly  what 
he  meant.  "  Every  hour,  every  month,  that  I 
can  possibly  make  them  last !  " 

She  was  with  him  here,  however,  but  to  a  cer- 
tain point.  "You  mustn't  drag  them  out  too 
much  —  must  you?  Won't  he  think  in  that 
case  you  may  want  to  retract  ?  " 

Yule  apparently  tried  to  focus  Mr.  Prodmore 
under  this  delusion,  and  with  a  success  that  had 
a  quick,  odd  result.  "  I  shouldn't  be  so  terribly 
upset  by  his  mistake,  you  know,  even  if  he  did !  " 

His  manner,  with  its  slight  bravado,  left  her 
proportionately  shocked.  "  Oh,  it  would  never 
do  to  give  him  any  colour  whatever  for  supposing 
you  to  have  any  doubt  that,  as  one  may  say, 
you've  pledged  your  honour." 

He  devoted  to  this  proposition  more  thought 
than  its  simplicity  would  have  seemed  to  de- 
mand ;  but  after  a  minute,  at  all  events,  his 
intelligence  triumphed.  "  Of  course  not  —  not 
when  I  haven't  any  doubt !  " 

Though  his  intelligence  had  triumphed,  she 
still  wished  to  show  she  was  there  to  support  it. 


334  COVERING   END 

"How  can  you  possibly  have  any  —  any  more 
than  you  can  possibly  have  that  one's  honour  is 
everything  in  life?"  And  her  charming  eyes 
expressed  to  him  her  need  to  feel  that  he  was 
quite  at  one  with  her  on  that  point. 

He  could  give  her  every  assurance.  "  Oh,  yes 
—  everything  in  life  I  " 

It  did  her  much  good,  brought  back  the  rest 
of  her  brightness.  "  Wasn't  it  just  of  the  ques- 
tion of  the  honour  of  things  that  we  talked 
awhile  ago  —  and  of  the  difficulty  of  sometimes 
keeping  our  sense  of  it  clear?  There's  no  more 
to  be  said  therefore,"  she  went  on  with  the  faint- 
est soft  sigh  about  it,  "except  that  I  leave  you 
to  your  ancient  glory  as  I  leave  you  to  your 
strict  duty."  She  had  these  things  there  before 
her;  they  might  have  been  a  well-spread  board 
from  which  she  turned  away  fasting.  "I  hope 
you'll  do  justice  to  dear  old  Covering  in  spite 
of  its  weak  points,  and  I  hope  above  all  you'll 
not  be  incommoded " 

As  she  hesitated  here  he  was  too  intent.  "  In- 
commoded   ?  " 

She  saw  it  better  than  she  could  express  it. 
"  "Well,  by  such  a  rage !  " 

He  challenged  this  description  with  a  strange 
gleam.  "You  suppose  it  will  be  a  rage  ?  " 


COVERING  END  335 

She  laughed  out  at  his  look.  "  Are  you  afraid 
of  the  love  that  kills?" 

He  grew  singularly  grave.     "  Will  it  kill ?" 

"  Great  passions  have ! "  —  she  was  highly 
amused. 

But  he  could  only  stare.  "  Is  it  a  great  pas- 
sion?" 

"  Surely  —  when  so  many  feel  it !  " 

He  was  fairly  bewildered.  "  But  how  many 
?" 

She  reckoned  them  up.  "  Let's  see.  If  you 
count  them  all " 

"  *  All '  ?  "  Clement  Yule  gasped. 

She  looked  at  him,  in  turn,  slightly  mystified. 
"  I  see.  You  knock  off  some.  About  half  ?  " 

It  was  too  obscure  —  he  broke  down.  "Whom 
on  earth  are  you  talking  about?  " 

"Why,  the  electors " 

"  Of  Gossage  ?  "  —  he  leaped  at  it.     "  Oh !  " 

"I  got  the  whole  thing  up  —  there  are  six 
thousand.  It's  such  a  fine  figure  !  "  said  Mrs. 
Gracedew. 

He  had  sharply  passed  from  her,  to  cover  his 
mistake,  and  it  carried  him  half  round  the  hall. 
Then,  as  if  aware  that  this  pause  itself  compro- 
mised him,  he  came  back  confusedly  and  with  her 
last  words  in  his  ear.  "  Has  she  a  fine  figure  ?  " 


66Q  COVERING  END 

But  her  own  thoughts  were  off.     "'She'?" 

He  blushed  and  recovered  himself.  "  Aren't 
we  talking " 

"  Of  Gossage  ?  Oh,  yes  —  she  has  every  charm ! 
Good-bye,"  said  Mrs.  Gracedew. 

He  pulled,  at  this,  the  longest  face,  but  was 
kept  dumb  a  moment  by  the  very  decision  with 
which  she  again  began  to  gather  herself,  It 
held  him  helpless,  and  there  was  finally  real 
despair  in  his  retarded  protest.  "  You  don't 
mean  to  say  you're  going  ? " 

"You  don't  mean  to  say  you're  surprised  at 
it?  Haven't  I  done,"  she  luminously  asked, 
"  what  I  told  you  I  had  been  so  mystically  moved 
to  come  for?"  She  recalled  to  him  by  her  re- 
newed supreme  survey  the  limited  character  of 
this  errand,  which  she  then  in  a  brisk  familiar 
word  expressed  to  the  house  itself.  "You  dear 
old  thing  —  you're  saved !  " 

Clement  Yule  might  on  the  other  hand,  by  his 
simultaneous  action,  have  given  himself  out  for 
lost.  "  For  God's  sake,"  he  cried  as  he  circled 
earnestly  round  her,  "  don't  go  till  I  can  come 
back  to  thank  you  !  "  He  pulled  out  his  watch. 
"I  promised  to  return  immediately  to  Prod- 
more." 

This  completely  settled  his  visitor.      "Then 


COVERING    END  337 

don't  let  me,  for  a  moment  more,  keep  you  away 
from  him.  You  must  have  such  lots  "  —  it  went 
almost  without  saying  —  "  to  talk  comfortably 
over." 

The  young  man's  embrace  of  that  was,  in  his 
restless  movement,  to  roam  to  the  end  of  the 
hall  furthest  from  the  stairs.  But  here  his  as- 
sent was  entire.  "  I  certainly  feel,  you  know, 
that  I  must  see  him  again."  He  rambled  even 
to  the  open  door  and  looked  with  incoherence 
into  the  court.  "Yes,  decidedly,  I  must!" 

"  Is  he  out  there  ?  "  Mrs.  Gracedew  lightly 
asked. 

He  turned  short  round.  "No  —  I  left  him 
in  the  long  gallery." 

"  You  saw  that,  then  ?  "  —  she  flashed  back  into 
eagerness.  "  Isn't  it  lovely  ?  " 

Clement  Yule  rather  wondered.  "I  didn't 
notice  it.  How  could  I?" 

His  face  was  so  woeful  that  she  broke  into  a 
laugh.  "  How  couldn't  you  ?  Notice  it  now, 
then.  Go  up  to  him  !  " 

He  crossed  at  last  to  the  staircase,  but  at  the 
foot  he  stopped  again.  "  Will  you  wait  for 
me?" 

He  had  such  an  air  of  proposing  a  bargain, 
of  making  the  wait  a  condition,  that  she  had  to 


338  COVERING  END 

look  it  well  in  the  face.  The  result  of  her  doing 
so,  however,  was  apparently  a  strong  sense  that 
she  could  give  him  no  pledge.  Her  silence,  after 
a  moment,  expressed  that ;  but,  for  a  further 
emphasis,  moving  away,  she  sank  suddenly  into 
the  chair  she  had  already  occupied  and  in 
which,  serious  again  and  very  upright,  she  con- 
tinued to  withhold  her  promise.  "Go  up  to 
him ! "  she  simply  repeated.  He  obeyed,  with 
an  abrupt  turn,  mounting  briskly  enough  several 
steps,  but  pausing  midway  and  looking  back 
at  her  as  if  he  were  after  all  irresolute.  He  was 
in  fact  so  much  so  that,  at  the  sight  of  her  still 
in  her  chair  and  alone  by  his  cold  hearth,  he 
descended  a  few  steps  again  and  seemed,  with 
too  much  decidedly  on  his  mind,  on  the  point 
of  breaking  out.  She  had  sat  a  minute  in  such 
thought,  figuring  him  clearly  as  gone,  that  at 
the  sound  of  his  return  she  sprang  up  with  a 
protest.  This  checked  him  afresh,  and  he  re- 
mained where  he  had  paused,  still  on  the  ascent 
and  exchanging  with  her  a  look  to  which  neither 
party  was  inspired,  oddly  enough,  to  contribute 
a  word.  It  struck  him,  without  words,  at  all 
events,  as  enough,  and  he  now  took  his  upward 
course  at  such  a  pace  that  he  presently  disap- 
peared. She  listened  awhile  to  his  retreating 


COVERING   END  339 

tread ;  then  her  own,  on  the  old  flags  of  the  hall, 
became  rapid,  though,  it  may  perhaps  be  added, 
directed  to  no  visible  end.  It  conveyed  her,  in 
the  great  space,  from  point  to  point,  but  she  now 
for  the  first  time  moved  there  without  attention 
and  without  joy,  her  course  determined  by  a  series 
of  such  inward  throbs  as  might  have  been  the 
suppressed  beats  of  a  speech.  A  real  observer,  had 
such  a  monster  been  present,  would  have  followed 
this  tacit  evolution  from  sign  to  sign  and  from 
shade  to  shade.  "Why  didn't  he  tell  me  all? — 
But  it  was  none  of  my  business  !  — ^What  does 
he  mean  to  do?  —  What  should  he  do  but  what 
he  has  done? — And  what  can  he  do,  when  he's 
so  deeply  committed,  when  he's  practically  en- 
gaged, when  he's  just  the  same  as  married  — 
and  buried  ?  —  The  thing  for  me  to  *  do '  is  just 
to  pull  up  short  and  bundle  out :  to  remove 
from  the  scene  they  encumber  the  numerous 
fragments  —  well,  of  what?" 

Her  thought  was  plainly  arrested  by  the  sight 
of  Cora  Prodmore,  who,  returning  from  the  gar- 
den, reappeared  first  in  the  court  and  then  in 
the  open  doorway.  Mrs.  Gracedew's  was  a 
thought,  however,  that,  even  when  desperate, 
was  never  quite  vanquished,  and  it  found  a  pre- 
sentable public  solution  in  the  pieces  of  the  vase 


340  COVERING   END 

smashed  by  drivers  and  just  then,  on  the  table 
where  he  had  laid  them,  catching  her  eye.  "  Of 
my  old  Chelsea  pot !  "  Her  gay,  sad  headshake 
as  she  took  one  of  them  up  pronounced  for 
Cora's  benefit  its  funeral  oration.  She  laid  the 
morsel  thoughtfully  down,  while  her  visitor 
seemed  with  simple  dismay  to  read  the  story. 


VI 


"HAS  he  been  breaking ?"  the  girl  asked 

in  horror. 

Mrs.  Gracedew  laughingly  tapped  her  heart. 
"  Yes,  we've  had  a  scene !  He  went  up  again 
to  your  father." 

Cora  was  disconcerted.  "  Papa's  not  there. 
He  just  came  down  to  me  by  the  other  way." 

"  Then  he  can  join  you  here,"  said  Mrs.  Grace- 
dew  with  instant  resignation.  "I'm  going." 

"Just  when  I've  come  back  to  you  —  at  the 
risk,"  Cora  made  bold  to  throw  off,  "of  again 
interrupting,  though  I  really  hoped  he  had  gone, 
your  conversation  with  Captain  Yule  ?  " 

But  Mrs.  Gracedew  let  the  ball  quite  drop. 
"I've  nothing  to  say  to  Captain  Yule." 

Cora  picked  it  up  for  another  toss.  "You 
had  a  good  deal  to  say  a  few  minutes  ago  ! " 

"Well,  I've  said  it,  and  it's  over.  I've  noth- 
ing more  to  say  at  all,"  Mrs.  Gracedew  insisted. 
But  her  announcement  of  departure  left  her  on 
341 


342  COVERING   END 

this  occasion,  as  each  of  its  predecessors  had 
done,  with  a  last,  with  indeed  a  fresh,  solicitude. 
"  What  has  become  of  my  delightful  '  party '  ?  " 

"  They've  been  dismissed,  through  the  grounds, 
by  the  other  door.  But  they  mentioned,"  the  girl 
pursued,  "the  probable  arrival  of  a  fresh  lot." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  showed  on  this  such  a  revival 
of  interest  as  fairly  amounted  to  yearning. 
" Why,  what  times  you  have  !  You"  she  never- 
theless promptly  decreed,  "must  take  the  fresh 
lot  —  since  the  house  is  now  practically  yours  !  " 

Poor  Cora  looked  blank.     "  Mine  ?  " 

Her  companion  matched  her  stare.  "  Why, 
if  you're  going  to  marry  Captain  Yule." 

Cora  coloured,  in  a  flash,  to  the  eyes.  "  I'm 
not  going  to  marry  Captain  Yule  !  " 

Her  friend  as  quickly  paled  again.  "  Why  on 
earth  then  did  you  tell  me  only  ten  minutes 
ago  that  you  were  ?  " 

Cora  could  only  look  bewildered  at  the  charge. 
"I  told  you  nothing  of  the  sort.  I  only  told 
you"  —  she  was  almost  indignantly  positive  — 
"  that  he  had  been  ordered  me !  " 

It  sent  Mrs.  Gracedew  off;  she  moved  away 
to  indulge  an  emotion  that  presently  put  on  the 
form  of  extravagant  mirth.  "Like  a  dose  of 
medicine  or  a  course  of  baths  ? " 


COVERING   END  343 

The  girl's  gravity  and  lucidity  sustained  them- 
selves. "As  a  remedy  for  the  single  life."  Oh, 
she  had  mastered  the  matter  now !  "  But  I 
won't  take  him !  " 

"Ah,  then,  why  didn't  you  let  me  know?" 
Mrs.  Graced ew  panted. 

"  I  was  on  the  very  point  of  it  when  he  came 
in  and  interrupted  us."  Cora  clearly  felt  she 
might  be  wicked,  but  was  at  least  not  stupid. 
"It's  just  to  let  you  know  that  I'm  here  now." 

Ah,  the  difference  it  made  !  This  difference, 
for  Mrs.  Gracedew,  suddenly  shimmered  in  all 
the  place,  and  her  companion's  fixed  eyes  caught 
in  her  face  the  reflection  of  it.  "  Excuse  me  —  I 
misunderstood.  I  somehow  took  for  granted 
!  "  She  stopped,  a  trifle  awkwardly  —  sud- 
denly tender,  for  Cora,  as  to  the  way  she  had 
inevitably  seen  it. 

"You  took  for  granted  I'd  jump  at  him? 
Well,  you  can  take  it  for  granted  I  won't ! " 

Mrs.  Gracedew,  fairly  admiring  her,  put  it 
sympathetically.  "  You  prefer  the  single  life  ?  " 

"No  —  but  I  don't  prefer  him!"  Cora  was 
crystal-bright. 

Her  light,  indeed,  for  her  friend,  was  at  first 
almost  blinding ;  it  took  Mrs.  Gracedew  a 
moment  to  distinguish  —  which  she  then  did, 


344  COVERING   END 

however,  with  immense  eagerness.  "  You  prefer 
someone  else?"  Cora's  promptitude  dropped  at 
this,  and,  starting  to  hear  it,  as  you  might  well 
have  seen,  for  the  first  time  publicly  phrased,  she 
abruptly  moved  away.  A  minute's  sense  of  her 
scruple  was  enough  for  Mrs.  Gracedew  :  this  was 
proved  by  the  tone  of  soft  remonstrance  and  high 
benevolence  with  which  that  lady  went  on.  She 
had  looked  very  hard,  first,  at  one  of  the  old  war- 
riors hung  on  the  old  wall,  and  almost  spoke  as  if 
he  represented  their  host.  "  He  seems  remarkably 
clever." 

Cora,  at  something  in  the  sound,  quite  jumped 
about.  "Then  why  don't  you  marry  him  your- 
self?" 

Mrs.  Gracedew  gave  a  sort  of  happy  sigh. 
"  Well,  I've  got  fifty  reasons !  I  rather  think 
one  of  them  must  be  that  he  hasn't  happened  to 
ask  me." 

It  was  a  speech,  however,  that  her  visitor 
could  easily  better.  "  I  haven't  got  fifty  reasons, 
but  I  have  got  one." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  smiled  as  if  it  were  indeed  a 
stroke  of  wit.  "  You  mean  your  case  is  one  of 
those  in  which  safety  is  not  in  numbers  ?  "  And 
then  on  Cora's  visibly  not  understanding  :  "  It  is 
when  reasons  are  bad  that  one  needs  so  many !  " 


COVERING   BND  34,5 

The  proposition  was  too  general  for  the  girl  to 
embrace,  but  the  simplicity  of  her  answer  was 
far  from  spoiling  it.  "  My  reason  is  awfully 
good." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  did  it  complete  justice.  "I 
see.  An  older  friend." 

Cora  listened  as  at  a  warning  sound  ;  yet  she 
had  by  this  time  practically  let  herself  go,  and  it 
took  but  Mrs.  Gracedew's  extended  encouraging 
hand,  which  she  quickly  seized,  to  bring  the 
whole  thing  out.  "I've  been  trying  this  hour, 
in  my  terrible  need  of  advice,  to  tell  you  about 
him  !  "  It  came  in  a  small  clear  torrent,  a  soft 
tumble-out  of  sincerity.  "After  we  parted  — 
you  and  I  —  at  the  station,  he  suddenly  turned 
up  there,  and  I  took  a  little  quiet  walk  with  him 
which  gave  you  time  to  get  here  before  me  and 
of  which  my  father  is  in  a  state  of  ignorance 
that  I  don't  know  whether  to  regard  as  desirable 
or  dreadful." 

Mrs.  Gracedew,  attentive  and  wise,  might  have 
been,  for  her  face,  the  old  family  solicitor.  "  You 
want  me  then  to  inform  your  father?"  It  was 
a  wonderful  intonation. 

Poor  Cora,  for  that  matter  too,  might  suddenly 
have  become  under  this  touch  the  prodigal  with 
a  list  of  debts.  She  seemed  an  instant  to  look  out 


346  COVERING   END 

of  a  blurred  office  window-pane  at  a  grey  Lon- 
don sky ;  then  she  broke  away.  "  I  really  don't 
know  what  I  want.  I  think,"  she  honestly  ad- 
mitted, "I  just  want  kindness." 

Mrs.  Gracedew's  expression  might  have  hinted 
—  but  not  for  too  long  —  that  Bedford  Row  was 
an  odd  place  to  apply  for  it ;  she  appeared  for 
an  instant  to  make  the  revolving  office-chair 
creak.  "  What  do  you  mean  by  kindness  ?  " 

Cora  was  a  model  client  —  she  perfectly  knew. 
"I  mean  help." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  closed  an  inkstand  with  a  clap 
and  locked  a  couple  of  drawers.  "What  do 
you  mean  by  help  ?  " 

The  client's  inevitable  answer  seemed  to  perch 
on  the  girl's  lips  :  "  A  thousand  pounds."  But 
it  came  out  in  another,  in  a  much  more  charm- 
ing form.  "I  mean  that  I  love  him." 

The  family  solicitor  got  up :  it  was  a  high 
figure.  "  And  does  he  love  you  ?  " 

Cora  hesitated.     "Ask  him." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  weighed  the  necessity. 
"Where  is  he?" 

"Waiting."  And  the  girl's  glance,  removed 
from  her  companion  and  wandering  aloft  and 
through  space,  gave  the  scale  of  his  patience. 

Her  adviser,  however,  required  the  detail. 
"But  where?" 


COVERING    END  347 

Cora  briefly  demurred  again.  "  In  that 
funny  old  grotto." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  thought.     "Funny?" 

"  Half-way  from  the  park  gate.  It's  very 
nice!'"  Cora  more  eagerly  added. 

Mrs.  Gracedew  continued  to  reflect.  "Oh,  I 
know  it !  "  She  spoke  as  if  she  had  known  it 
most  of  her  life. 

Her  tone  encouraged  her  client.  "Then  will 
you  see  him  ?  " 

"No."     This  time  it  was  almost  dry. 

"No?" 

"No.  If  you  want  help "  Mrs.  Grace- 
dew,  still  musing,  explained. 

"Yes?" 

"Well  —  you  want  a  great  deal." 

"  Oh,  so  much  !  "  —  Cora  but  too  woefully  took 
it  in.  "I  want,"  she  quavered,  "all  there 
is!" 

"Well  — you  shall  have  it." 

"  All  there  is  ?  "  —  she  convulsively  held  her 
to  it. 

Mrs.  Gracedew  had  finally  mastered  it.  "I'll 
see  your  father." 

"  You  dear,  delicious  lady  I "  Her  young 
friend  had  again  encompassed  her  ;  but,  passive 
and  preoccupied,  she  showed  some  of  the  chill 


348  COVERING   END 

of  apprehension.  It  was  indeed  as  if  to  meet 
this  that  Cora  went  earnestly  on:  "He's  in- 
tensely sympathetic  !  " 

"  Your  father  ? "  Mrs.  Gracedew  had  her 
reserves. 

"Oh,  no  —  the  other  person.  I  so  believe  in 
him  !  "  Cora  cried. 

Mrs.  Gracedew  looked  at  her  a  moment.  "  Then 
so  do  I  —  and  I  like  him  for  believing  in  you." 

"  Oh,  he  does  that,"  the  girl  hurried  on,  "  far 
more  than  Captain  Yule  —  I  could  see  just  with 
one  glance  that  he  doesn't  at  all.  Papa  has  of 
course  seen  the  young  man  I  mean,  but  we've 
been  so  sure  papa  would  hate  it  that  we've  had 
to  be  awfully  careful.  He's  the  son  of  the 
richest  man  at  Bellborough,  he's  Granny's  god- 
son, and  he'll  inherit  his  father's  business,  which 
is  simply  immense.  Oh,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  things  he's  in "  —  and  Cora  found  her- 
self sharp  on  this  —  "  he's  quite  as  good  as  papa 
himself.  He  has  been  away  for  three  days,  and 
if  he  met  me  at  the  station,  where,  on  his  way 
back,  he  has  to  change,  it  was  by  the  merest 
chance  in  the  world.  I  wouldn't  love  him,"  she 
brilliantly  wound  up,  "if  he  wasn't  nice." 

"  A  man's  always  nice  if  you  will  love  him !  " 
Mrs.  Gracedew  laughed. 


COVERING   END  349 

Her  young  friend  more  than  met  it.  "  He's 
nicer  still  if  he  'will'  love  you!" 

But  Mrs.  Gracedew  kept  her  head.  "  Nicer  of 
course  than  if  he  won't !  But  are  you  sure  this 
gentleman  does  love  you  ?  " 

"As  sure  as  that  the  other  one  doesn't." 

"Ah,  but  the  other  one  doesn't  know  you." 

"  Yes,  thank  goodness  —  and  never  shall !  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  watched  her  a  little,  but  on  the 
girl's  meeting  her  eyes  turned  away  with  a  quick 
laugh.  "  You  mean  of  course  till  it's  too  late." 

"  Altogether  !  "  Cora  spoke  as  with  quite  the 
measure  of  the  time. 

Mrs.  Gracedew,  revolving  a  moment  in  silence, 
appeared  to  accept  her  showing.  "  Then  what's 
the  matter?  "  she  impatiently  asked. 

"  The  matter  ?  " 

"Your  father's  objection  to  the  gentleman  in 
the  grotto." 

Cora  now  for  the  first  time  faltered.  "  His 
name." 

This  for  a  moment  pulled  up  her  friend,  in 
whom,  however,  relief  seemed  to  contend  with 
alarm.  "  Only  his  name?" 

"  Yes,  but "     Cora's  eyes  rolled. 

Her  companion  invitingly  laughed.  "But  it's 
enough  ?  " 


350  COVERING    END 

Her  roll  confessingly  fixed  itself.  "  Not  enough 
—  that's  just  the  trouble  !  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  looked  kindly  curious.  "  What 
then  is  it?" 

Cora  faced  the  music.     "  Pegg." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  stared.     "  Nothing  else  ?  " 

"Nothing  to  speak  of."  The  girl  was  quite 
candid  now.  "Hall." 

"  Nothing  before ?  " 

"Not  a  letter." 

"Hall  Pegg?"  Mrs.  Gracedew  had  winced, 
but  she  quickly  recovered  herself,  and,  for  a 
further  articulation,  appeared,  from  delicacy,  to 
form  the  sound  only  with  her  mind.  The  sound 
she  formed  with  her  lips  was,  after  an  instant, 
simply  "  Oh !  " 

It  was  to  the  combination  of  the  spoken  and 
the  unspoken  that  Cora  desperately  replied.  "  It 
sounds  like  a  hat-rack  I  " 

" '  Hall  Pegg '  ?  '  Hall  Pegg'  ?  "  Mrs.  Gracedew 
now  made  it,  like  a  questionable  coin,  ring  upon 
the  counter.  But  it  lay  there  as  lead  and  without, 
for  a  moment,  her  taking  it  up  again.  "  How 
many  has  your  father  ?  "  she  inquired  instead. 

"  How  many  names  ?  "  Miss  Prodmore  seemed 
dimly  to  see  that  there  was  no  hope  in  that.  "  He 
somehow  makes  out  five." 


COVERING   END  351 

"  Oh,  that's  too  many !  "  Mrs.  Gracedew  jeer- 
ingly  declared. 

"Papa  unfortunately  doesn't  think  so,  when 
Captain  Yule,  I  believe,  has  six." 

"  Six  ? "  Mrs.  Gracedew,  alert,  looked  as  if 
that  might  be  different. 

"  Papa,  in  the  morning-room,  told  me  them  "all." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  visibly  considered,  then  for  a  mo- 
ment dropped  Mr.  Pegg.  "  And  what  are  they !  " 

"Oh,  all  sorts.  'Marmaduke  Clement '" 

Cora  tried  to  recall. 

Mrs.  Gracedew,  however,  had  already  checked 
her.  "I  see  —  'Marmaduke  Clement'  will  do." 
She  appeared  for  a  minute  intent,  but,  as  with  an 
energetic  stoop,  she  picked  up  Mr.  Pegg.  "But 
so  will  yours,"  she  said,  with  decision. 

"  Mine  ?  —  you  mean  his  !  " 

"The  same  thing  —  what  you'll  be." 

"  Mrs.  Hall  Pegg  I  "  —  Cora  tried  it,  with  reso- 
lution, loudly. 

It  fell  a  little  flat  in  the  noble  space,  but  Mrs. 
Gracedew's  manner  quickly  covered  it.  "It 
won't  make  you  a  bit  less  charming." 

Cora  wondered — she  hoped.     "Only  for  papa." 

And  what  was  he?  Mrs.  Gracedew  by  this 
time  seemed  assentingly  to  ask.  "Never  for 
me!"  she  soothingly  declared. 


352  COVERING   END 

Cora  took  this  in  with  deep  thanks  that  gripped 
and  patted  her  companion's  hand.  "  You  accept 
it  more  than  gracefully.  But  if  you  could  only 
make  him !  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  was  all  concentration.  "  *  Him '  ? 
Mr.  Pegg?" 

"No  —  he   naturally   has   to  accept   it.      But 


She  looked  harder  still  at  this  greater  feat,  then 
seemed  to  see  light.  "  Well,  it  will  be  difficult  — 
but  I  will." 

Doubt  paled  before  it.  "  Oh,  you  heavenly 
thing !  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  after  an  instant,  sustained  by 
this  appreciation,  went  a  step  further.  "  And  I'll 
make  him  say  he  does  !  " 

Cora  closed  her  eyes  with  the  dream  of  it. 
"  Oh,  if  I  could  only  hear  him  !  " 

Her  benefactress  had  at  last  run  it  to  earth. 
"It  will  be  enough  if  J  do." 

Cora  quickly  considered;  then,  with  prompt 
accommodation,  gave  the  comfortable  measure  of 
her  faith.  "Yes  —  I  think  it  will."  She  was 
quite  ready  to  retire.  "I'll  give  you  time." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Mrs.  Gracedew;  "but 
before  you  give  me  time  give  me  something 
better." 


COVERING  END  353 

This  pulled  the  girl  up  a  little,  as  if  in  part- 
ing with  her  secret  she  had  parted  with  her  all. 
"  Something  better  ?  " 

"If  I  help  you,  you  know,"  Mrs.  Gracedew 
explained,  "  you  must  help  me." 

"  But  how  ?  " 

"  By  a  clear  assurance. "  The  charming  woman's 
fine  face  now  gave  the  real  example  of  clearness. 
"  That  if  Captain  Yule  should  propose  to  you,  you 
would  unconditionally  refuse  him." 

Cora  flushed  with  the  surprise  of  its  being  only 
that.  "  With  my  dying  breath  !  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  scanned  her  robust  vitality. 
"  Will  you  make  it  even  a  promise  ? " 

The  girl  looked  about  her  in  solid  certainty. 
"  Do  you  want  me  to  sign ?  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  was  quick.     "  No,  don't  sign  !  " 

Yet  Cora  was  so  ready  to  oblige.  "  Then  what 
shall  I  do?" 

Mrs.  Gracedew  turned  away,  but  after  a  few 
vague  steps  faced  her  again.  "  Kiss  me." 

Cora  flew  to  her  arms,  and  the  compact  had 
scarce  been  sealed  before  the  younger  of  the  par- 
ties was  already  at  the  passage  to  the  front.  "  We 
meet  of  course  at  the  station." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  thought.  "  If  all  goes  well. 
But  where  shall  you  be  meanwhile?" 

2A 


354  COVERING    END 

Her  confederate  had  no  need  to  think.  "  Can't 
you  guess  ?  " 

The  bang  of  the  house-door,  the  next  minute, 
so  helped  the  answer  to  the  riddle  as  fairly  to 
force  it,  when  she  found  herself  alone,  from  her 
lips.  "  At  that  funny  old  grotto  ?  Well,"  she 
sighed,  "  I  like  funny  old  grottos  !  "  She  found 
herself  alone,  however,  only  for  a  minute  ;  Mr. 
Prodmore's  formidable  presence  had  darkened  the 
door  from  the  court. 


VII 

"  MY  daughter's  not  here  ?  "  he  demanded  from 
the  threshold. 

"Your  daughter's  not  here."  She  had  rapidly 
got  under  arms.  "  But  it's  a  convenience  to  me, 
Mr.  Prodmore,  that  you  are,  for  I've  something 
very  particular  to  ask  you." 

Her  interlocutor  crossed  straight  to  the  morn- 
ing-room. "  I  shall  be  delighted  to  answer  your 
question,  but  I  must  first  put  my  hand  on  Miss 
Prodmore."  This  hand  the  next  instant  stayed 
itself  on  the  latch,  and  he  appealed  to  the  amiable 
visitor.  "Unless  indeed  she's  occupied  in  there 
with  Captain  Yule?" 

The  amiable  visitor  met  the  appeal.  "  I  don't 
think  she's  occupied  —  anywhere  —  with  Captain 
Yule." 

Mr.  Prodmore  came  straight  away  from  the 
door.  "  Then  where  the  deuce  is  Captain  Yule  ?  " 

The  amiable  visitor  turned  a  trifle  less  direct. 
*'  His  absence,  for  which  I'm  responsible,  is  just 
what  renders  the  inquiry  I  speak  of  to  you  possi- 
355 


356  COVERING   END 

ble."  She  had  already  assumed  a  most  inquiring 
air,  yet  it  was  soon  clear  that  she  needed  every 
advantage  her  manner  could  give  her.  "What 
will  you  take ?  what  will  you  take ?" 

It  had  the  sound,  as  she  faltered,  of  a  general 
question,  and  Mr.  Prodmore  raised  his  eyebrows. 
"Take?  Nothing,  thank  you — I've  just  had  a 
cup  of  tea."  Then  suddenly,  as  if  on  the  broad 
hint :  "  Won't  you  have  one  ?  " 

"Yes,  with  pleasure  —  but  not  yet."  She 
looked  about  her  again  ;  she  was  now  at  close 
quarters  and,  concentrated,  anxious,  pressed  her 
hand  a  moment  to  her  brow. 

This  struck  her  companion.  "  Don't  you 
think  you'd  be  better  for  it  immediately  ? " 

"No."  She  was  positive.  "No."  Her  eyes 
consciously  wandered.  "I  want  to  know  how 
you'd  value " 

He  took  her,  as  his  own  followed  them,  more 
quickly  up,  expanding  in  the  presence  of  such 
a  tribute  from  a  real  connoisseur.  "  One  of  these 
charming  old  things  that  take  your  fancy  ?  " 

She  looked  at  him  straight  now.  "  They  all 
take  my  fancy  !  " 

"All?"  He  enjoyed  it  as  the  joke  of  a  rich 
person  —  the  kind  of  joke  he  sometimes  made 
himself. 


COVERING   END  357 

"  Every  single  one ! "  said  Mrs.  Gracedew. 
Then  with  still  a  finer  shade  of  the  familiar : 
"  Should  you  be  willing  to  treat,  Mr.  Prodmore, 
for  your  interest  in  this  property  ?  " 

He  threw  back  his  head :  she  had  scattered 
over  the  word  "  interest "  such  a  friendly,  faded 
colour.  She  was  either  not  joking  or  was  rich 
indeed ;  and  there  was  a  place  always  kept  in 
his  conversation  for  the  arrival  of  money,  as 
there  is  always  a  box  in  a  well-appointed  theatre 
for  that  of  royalty.  "  Am  I  to  take  it  from  you 
then  that  you  know  about  my  interest ?" 

"  Everything !  "  said  Mrs.  Gracedew  with  a 
world  of  wit. 

"  Excuse  me,  madam  !  "  —  he  himself  was  now 
more  reserved.  "  You  don't  know  everything 
if  you  don't  know  that  my  interest  —  consider- 
able as  it  might  well  have  struck  you  —  has  just 
ceased  to  exist.  I've  given  it  up  "  —  Mr.  Prod- 
more  softened  the  blow — "for  a  handsome 
equivalent." 

The  blow  fell  indeed  light  enough.  "You 
mean  for  a  handsome  son-in-law  ?  " 

"It  will  be  by  some  such  description  as  the 
term  you  use  that  I  shall  doubtless,  in  the 
future,  permit  myself,  in  the  common  course,  to 
allude  to  Captain  Yule.  Unless  indeed  I  call  him 


358  COVERING   END 

"  But  Mr.  Prodmore  dropped  the  bolder 

thought.  "It  will  depend  on  what  he  calls  me." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  covered  him  a  moment  with 
the  largeness  of  her  charity.  "Won't  it  depend 
a  little  on  what  your  daughter  herself  calls  him?" 

Mr.  Prodmore  seriously  considered.  "No. 
That,"  he  declared  with  delicacy,  "will  be  be- 
tween the  happy  pair." 

"Am  I  to  take  it  from  you  then  —  I  adopt 
your  excellent  phrase,"  Mrs.  Gracedew  said  — 
"  that  Miss  Prodmore  has  already  accepted  him  ?  " 

Her  companion,  with  his  head  still  in  the  air, 
seemed  to  signify  that  he  simply  put  it  down 
on  the  table  and  that  she  could  take  it  or  not 
as  she  liked.  "  Her  character  —  formed  by  my 
assiduous  care  —  enables  me  to  locate  her,  I  may 
say  even  to  time  her,  from  moment  to  moment." 
His  massive  watch,  as  he  opened  it,  further 
sustained  him  in  this  process.  "  It's  my  as- 
sured conviction  that  she's  accepting  him  while 
we  stand  here." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  was  so  affected  by  his  assured 
conviction  that,  with  an  odd,  inarticulate  sound, 
she  forbore  to  stand  longer  —  she  rapidly  moved 
away,  taking  one  of  the  brief  excursions  of  step 
and  sense  that  had  been  for  her,  from  the  first, 
under  the  noble  roof,  so  many  dumb  but  decisive 


COVERING  END  359 

communions.  But  it  was  soon  over,  and  she 
floated  back  on  a  wave  that  showed  her  to  be, 
since  she  had  let  herself  go,  by  this  time  quite 
in  the  swing  and  describing  a  considerable  curve. 
"  Dear  Mr.  Prodmore,  why  are  you  so  impru- 
dent as  to  make  your  daughter  afraid  of  you  ? 
You  should  have  taught  her  to  confide  in  you. 
She  has  clearly  shown  me,"  she  almost  sooth- 
ingly pursued,  "that  she  can  confide." 

Mr.  Prodmore,  however,  suddenly  starting, 
looked  far  from  soothed.  "  She  confides  in 
you  f  " 

"  You  may  take  it  from  me !  "  Mrs.  Gracedew 
laughed.  "Let  me  suggest  that,  as  fortune 
has  thrown  us  together  a  minute,  you  follow 
her  good  example."  She  put  out  a  reassuring 
hand  —  she  could  perfectly  show  him  the  way. 
"Tell  me,  for  instance,  the  ground  of  your 
objection  to  poor  Mr.  Pegg.  I  mean  Mr.  Pegg 
of  Bellborough,  Mr.  Hall  Pegg,  the  godson  of 
your  daughter's  grandmother  and  the  associate 
of  his  father  in  their  flourishing  house ;  to 
whom  (as  he  is  to  it  and  to  her)  Miss  Prodmore's 
devotedly  attached." 

Mr.  Prodmore  had  in  the  course  of  this  speech 
availed  himself  of  the  support  of  the  nearest 
chair,  where,  in  spite  of  his  subsidence,  he 


360  COVERING   END 

appeared  in  his  amazement  twice  his  natural  size. 
"  It  has  gone  so  far  as  that  f  " 

She  rose  before  him  as  if  in  triumph.  "It 
has  gone  so  far  that  you  had  better  let  it  go 
the  rest  of  the  way  !  " 

He  had  lost  breath,  but  he  had  positively 
gained  dignity.  "  It's  too  monstrous,  to  have 
plotted  to  keep  me  in  the  dark !  " 

"Why,  it's  only  when  you're  kept  in  the 
dark  that  your  daughter's  kept  in  the  light !  " 
She  argued  it  with  a  candour  that  might  have 
served  for  brilliancy.  "It's  at  her  own  earnest 
request  that  I  plead  to  you  for  her  liberty  of 
choice.  She's  an  honest  girl  —  perhaps  even  a 
peculiar  girl ;  and  she's  not  a  baby.  You  over-do, 
I  think,  the  nursing.  She  has  a  perfect  right 
to  her  preference." 

Poor  Mr.  Prodmore  couldn't  help  taking  it 
from  her,  and,  this  being  the  case,  he  still  took 
it  in  the  most  convenient  way.  "And  pray 
haven't  I  a  perfect  right  to  mine?"  he  asked 
from  his  chair. 

She  fairly  seemed  to  serve  it  up  to  him  —  to 
put  down  the  dish  with  a  flourish.  "Not  at 
her  expense.  You  expect  her  to  give  up  too 
much." 

"And  what  has  she,"  he  appealed,  "expected 


COVERING   END  361 

me  to  give  up?  What  but  the  desire  of  my 
heart  and  the  dream  of  my  life  ?  Captain  Yule 
announced  to  me  but  a  few  minutes  since  his 
intention  to  offer  her  his  hand." 

She  faced  him  on  it  as  over  the  table.  "  Well, 
if  he  does,  I  think  he'll  simply  find " 

"Find  what?"  They  looked  at  each  other 
hard. 

"Why,  that  she  won't  have  it." 

Oh,  Mr.  Prodmore  now  sprang  up.  "  She 
will!" 

"  She  won't ! "  Mrs.  Gracedew  more  distinctly 
repeated. 

"  She  shall ! "  returned  her  adversary,  making 
for  the  staircase  with  the  evident  sense  of  where 
reinforcement  might  be  most  required. 

Mrs.  Gracedew,  however,  with  a  spring,  was 
well  before  him.  "  She  shan't ! "  She  spoke 
with  positive  passion  and  practically  so  barred 
the  way  that  he  stood  arrested  and  bewildered, 
and  they  faced  each  other,  for  a  flash,  like 
enemies.  But  it  all  went  out,  on  her  part,  in  a 
flash  too  —  in  a  sudden  wonderful  smile.  "Now 
tell  me  how  much  !  " 

Mr.  Prodmore  continued  to  glare  —  the  sweat 
was  on  his  brow.  But  while  he  slowly  wiped  it 
with  a  pocket-handkerchief  of  splendid  scarlet 


362  COVERING   END 

silk,  he  remained  so  silent  that  he  would  have 
had  for  a  spectator  the  effect  of  meeting  in  a 
manner  her  question.  More  formally  to  answer 
it  he  had  at  last  to  turn  away.  "  How  can  I  tell 
you  anything  so  preposterous  ?  " 

She  was  all  ready  to  inform  him.  "  Simply 
by  computing  the  total  amount  to  which,  for  your 
benefit,  this  unhappy  estate  is  burdened."  He 
listened  with  his  back  presented,  but  that  ap- 
peared to  strike  her,  as  she  fixed  this  expanse, 
as  an  encouragement  to  proceed.  "  If  I've 
troubled  you  by  showing  you  that  your  specula- 
tion is  built  on  the  sand,  let  me  atone  for  it  by 
my  eagerness  to  take  off  your  hands  an  invest- 
ment from  which  you  derive  so  little  profit." 

He  at  last  gave  her  his  attention,  but  quite  as 
if  there  were  nothing  in  it.  "  And  pray  what 
profit  will  you  derive ?  " 

"  Ah,  that's  my  own  secret  ! "  She  would  show 
him  as  well  no  glimpse  of  it  —  her  laugh  but 
rattled  the  box.  "  I  want  this  house  !  " 

"  So  do  I,  damn  me  ! "  he  roundly  returned  ; 
"  and  that's  why  I've  practically  paid  for  it ! " 
He  stuffed  away  his  pocket-handkerchief. 

There  was  nevertheless  something  in  her  that 
could  hold  him,  and  it  came  out,  after  an  instant, 
quietly  and  reasonably  enough.  "  I'll  practically 


COVERING   END  363 

pay  for  it,  Mr.  Prodmore  —  if  you'll  only  tell  me 
your  figure." 

"  My  figure  ?  " 

"Your  figure." 

Mr.  Prodmore  waited  —  then  removed  his  eyes 
from  her  face.  He  appeared  to  have  waited  on 
purpose  to  let  her  hope  of  a  soft  answer  fall  from 
a  greater  height.  "  My  figure  would  be  quite  my 
own !  " 

"Then  it  will  match,  in  that  respect,"  Mrs. 
Gracedew  laughed,  "  this  overture,  which  is  quite 
my  own  !  As  soon  as  you've  let  me  know  it  I 
cable  to  Missoura  Top  to  have  the  money  sent 
right  out  to  you." 

Mr.  Prodmore  surveyed  in  a  superior  manner 
this  artless  picture  of  a  stroke  of  business.  "You 
imagine  that  having  the  money  sent  right  out  to 
me  will  make  you  owner  of  this  place  ?  " 

She  herself,  with  her  head  on  one  side,  studied 
her  sketch  and  seemed  to  twirl  her  pencil.  "  No 
—  not  quite.  But  I'll  settle  the  rest  with  Cap- 
tain Yule." 

Her  companion  looked,  over  his  white  waist- 
coat, at  his  large  tense  shoes,  the  patent-leather 
shine  of  which  so  flashed  propriety  back  at  him 
that  he  became,  the  next  moment,  doubly  erect  on 
it.  "  Captain  Yule  has  nothing  to  sell." 


364  COVERING   END 

She  received  the  remark  with  surprise.  "  Then 
what  have  you  been  trying  to  buy  ?  " 

She  had  touched  in  himself  even  a  sharper 
spring.  "Do  you  mean  to  say,"  he  cried,  "you 
want  to  buy  that?"  She  stared  at  his  queer 
emphasis,  which  was  intensified  by  a  queer  gri- 
mace ;  then  she  turned  from  him  with  a  change 
of  colour  and  an  ejaculation  that  led  to  nothing 
more,  after  a  few  seconds,  than  a  somewhat 
conscious  silence  —  a  silence  of  which  Mr.  Prod- 
more  made  use  to  follow  up  his  unanswered 
question  with  another.  "Is  your  proposal  that 
I  should  transfer  my  investment  to  you  for  the 
mere  net  amount  of  it  your  conception  of  a  fair 
bargain  ?  " 

This  second  inquiry,  however,  she  could,  as 
she  slowly  came  round,  substantially  meet. 
"Pray,  then,  what  is  yours?" 

"  Mine  would  be,  not  that  I  should  simply 
get  my  money  back,  but  that  I  should  get  the 
effective  value  of  the  house." 

Mrs.  Gracedew  considered  it.  "But  isn't 
the  effective  value  of  the  house  just  what  your 
money  expresses  ?  " 

The  lid  of  his  hard  left  eye,  the  harder  of  the 
two,  just  dipped  with  the  effect  of  a  wink.  "  No, 
madam.  It's  just  what  yours  does.  It's  more- 


COVEB1NG  END  365 

over  just  what  your  lips  have  already  expressed 
so  distinctly  !  " 

She  clearly  did  her  best  to  follow  him.  "  To 
those  people  —  when  I  showed  the  place  off  ?  " 

Mr.  Prodmore  laughed.  "You  seemed  to  be 
taking  bids  then  !  " 

She  was  candid,  but  earnest.  "Taking 
them?" 

"  Oh,  like  an  auctioneer  !  You  ran  it  up  high  !  " 
And  Mr.  Prodmore  laughed  again. 

She  turned  a  little  pale,  but  it  added  to  her 
brightness.  "I  certainly  did,  if  saying  it  was 
charming " 

"  Charming  ?  "  Mr.  Prodmore  broke  in.  "  You 
said  it  was  magnificent.  You  said  it  was  unique. 
That  was  your  very  word.  You  said  it  was  the 
perfect  specimen  of  its  class  in  England."  He 
was  more  than  accusatory,  he  was  really  crush- 
ing. "  Oh,  you  got  in  deep  !  " 

It  was  indeed  an  indictment,  and  her  smile 
was  perhaps  now  rather  set.  "Possibly.  But 
taunting  me  with  my  absurd  high  spirits  and 
the  dreadful  liberties  I  took  doesn't  in  the  least 
tell  me  how  deep  you're  in  !  " 

"  For  you,  Mrs.  Gracedew  ?  "  He  took  a  few 
steps,  looking  at  his  shoes  again  and  as  if  to  give 
her  time  to  plead  —  since  he  wished  to  be  quite 


366  COVERING   END 

fair  —  that  it  was  not  for  her.  "I'm  in  to  the 
tune  of  fifty  thousand." 

She  was  silent,  on  this  announcement,  so  long 
that  he  once  more  faced  her ;  but  if  what  he 
showed  her  in  doing  so  at  last  made  her  speak, 
it  also  took  the  life  from  her  tone.  "  That's  a 
great  deal  of  money,  Mr.  Prodmore." 

The  tone  didn't  matter,  but  only  the  truth  it 
expressed,  which  he  so  thoroughly  liked  to  hear. 
"  So  I've  often  had  occasion  to  say  to  myself ! " 

"  If  it's  a  large  sum  for  you,  then,"  said  Mrs. 
Gracedew,  "it's  a  still  larger  one  for  me."  She 
sank  into  a  chair  with  a  vague  melancholy ; 
such  a  mass  loomed  huge,  and  she  sat  down 
before  it  as  a  solitary  herald,  resigning  himself 
with  a  sigh  to  wait,  might  have  leaned  against 
a  tree  before  a  besieged  city.  "We  women" 
—  she  wished  to  conciliate  —  "  have  more  modest 
ideas." 

But  Mr.  Prodmore  would  scarce  condescend 
to  parley.  "Is  it  as  a  'modest  idea'  that  you 
describe  your  extraordinary  intrusion ?" 

His  question  scarce  reached  her;  she  was  so 
lost  for  the  moment  in  the  sense  of  innocent 
community  with  her  sex.  "I  mean  I  think  we 
measure  things  often  rather  more  exactly." 

There  would  have  been  no  doubt  of  Mr.  Prod- 


COVEKING    END  367 

more's  very  different  community  as  he  rudely 
replied  :  "  Then  you  measured  this  thing  exactly 
half  an  hour  ago  !  " 

It  was  a  long  way  to  go  back,  but  Mrs.  Grace- 
dew,  in  her  seat,  musingly  made  the  journey, 
from  which  she  then  suddenly  returned  with  a 
harmless,  indeed  quite  a  happy,  memento.  "  Was 
I  very  grotesque  ?  " 

He  demurred.     "  Grotesque  ?  " 

"  I  mean  —  did  I  go  on  about  it?  " 

Mr.  Prodmore  would  have  no  general  descrip- 
tions ;  he  was  specific,  he  was  vivid.  "  You 
banged  the  desk.  You  raved.  You  shrieked." 

This  was  a  note  she  appeared  indulgently, 
almost  tenderly,  to  recognise.  "We  do  shriek 
at  Missoura  Top  !  " 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  do  at  Missoura  Top, 
but  I  know  what  you  did  at  Covering  End !  " 

She  warmed  at  last  to  his  tone.  "  So  do  / 
then !  I  surprised  you.  You  weren't  at  all 
prepared " 

He  took  her  briskly  up.  "No  —  and  I'm  not 
prepared  yet !  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  could  quite  see  it.  "Yes, 
you're  too  astonished." 

"My  astonishment's  my  own  affair,"  he  re- 
torted —  "  not  less  so  than  my  memory  !  " 


368  COVERING  END 

"  Oh,  I  yield  to  your  memory,"  said  the  charm- 
ing woman,  "  and  I  confess  my  extravagance. 
But  quite,  you  know,  as  extravagance." 

"I  don't  at  all  know," — Mr.  Prodmore  shook 
it  off, — "nor  what  you  call  extravagance." 

"Why,  banging  the  desk.  Raving.  Shriek- 
ing. I  over-did  it,"  she  exclaimed;  "I  wanted 
to  please  you  !  " 

She  had  too  happy  a  beauty,  as  she  sat  in  her 
high-backed  chair,  to  have  been  condemned  to 
say  that  to  any  man  without  a  certain  effect. 
The  effect  on  Mr.  Prodmore  was  striking.  "  So 
you  said,"  he  sternly  inquired,  "  what  you  didn't 
believe?" 

She  flushed  with  the  avowal.    "Yes — for  you." 

He  looked  at  her  hard.     "For  me?" 

Under  his  eye  —  for  her  flush  continued  —  she 
slowly  got  up.  "  And  for  those  good  people." 

"  Oh  !  "  —  he  sounded  most  sarcastic.  "  Should 
you  like  me  to  call  them  back  ?  " 

"  No."  She  was  still  gay  enough,  but  very 
decided.  "  I  took  them  in." 

"  And  now  you  want  to  take  me?  " 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Prodmore ! "  she  almost  pitifully, 
but  not  quite  adequately,  moaned. 

He  appeared  to  feel  he  had  gone  a  little  far. 
"  Well,  if  we're  not  what  you  say " 


COVERING    END  369 

"  Yes  ?  "  —  she  looked  up  askance  at  the  stroke. 

"  Why  the  devil  do  you  want  us  ?  "  The  ques- 
tion rang  out  and  was  truly  for  the  poor  lady,  as 
the  quick  suffusion  of  her  eyes  showed,  a  chal- 
lenge it  would  take  more  time  than  he  left  her 
properly  to  pick  up.  He  left  her  in  fact  no  time 
at  all  before  he  went  on :  "  Why  the  devil  did 
you  say  you'd  offer  fifty  ?  " 

She  looked  quite  wan  and  seemed  to  wonder. 
" Did  I  say  that?"  She  could  only  let  his 
challenge  lie.  "  It  was  a  figure  of  speech  !  " 

"  Then  that's  the  kind  of  figure  we're  talking 
about !  "  Mr.  Prodmore's  sharpness  would  have 
struck  an  auditor  as  the  more  effective  that,  on 
the  heels  of  this  thrust,  seeing  the  ancient  but- 
ler reappear,  he  dropped  the  victim  of  it  as 
comparatively  unimportant  and  directed  his 
fierceness  instantly  to  Chivers,  who  mildly 
gaped  at  him  from  the  threshold  of  the  court. 
"Have  you  seen  Miss  Prodmore?  If  you 
haven't,  find  her !  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  addressed  their  visitor  in  a 
very  different  tone,  though  with  the  full  author- 
ity of  her  benevolence.  "You  won't,  my  dear 
man."  To  Mr.  Prodmore  also  she  continued 
bland.  "  I  happen  to  know  she  has  gone  for  a 
walk." 

2B 


370  COVERING    END 

"A  walk  —  alone?"  Mr.   Prodmore  gasped. 

"No  —  not  alone."  Mrs.  Gracedew  looked 
at  Chivers  with  a  vague  smile  of  appeal  for 
help,  but  he  could  only  give  her,  from  under 
his  bent  old  brow,  the  blank  decency  of  his 
wonder.  It  seemed  to  make  her  feel  afresh 
that  she  was,  after  all,  alone  —  so  that  in  her 
loneliness,  which  had  also  its  fine  sad  charm, 
she  risked  another  brush  with  their  formidable 
friend.  "  Cora  has  gone  with  Mr.  Pegg." 

"  Pegg  has  been  here  ?  " 

It  was  like  a  splash  in  a  full  basin,  but  she 
launched  the  whole  craft.  "  He  walked  with 
her  from  the  station." 

"When  she  arrived?"  Mr.  Prodmore  rose 
like  outraged  Neptune.  "That's  why  she  was 
so  late?" 

Mrs.  Gracedew  assented.  "Why  I  got  here 
first.  I  get  everywhere  first ! "  she  bravely 
laughed. 

Mr.  Prodmore  looked  round  him  in  purple 
dismay  —  it  was  so  clearly  a  question  for  him 
where  he  should  get,  and  what !  "  In  which 
direction  did  they  go  ? "  he  imperiously  asked. 

His  rudeness  was  too  evident  to  be  more 
than  lightly  recognised.  "  I  think  I  must  let 
you  ascertain  for  yourself !  " 


COVERING   END  371 

All  he  could  do  then  was  to  shout  it  to 
Chivers.  "  Call  my  carriage,  you  ass  !  "  After 
which,  as  the  old  man  melted  into  the  vestibule, 
he  dashed  about  blindly  for  his  hat,  pounced 
upon  it  and  seemed,  furious  but  helpless,  on 
the  point  of  hurling  it  at  his  contradictress  as 
a  gage  of  battle.  "So  you  abetted  and  pro- 
tected this  wicked,  low  intrigue?" 

She  had  something  in  her  face  now  that  was 
indifferent  to  any  violence.  "You're  too  dis- 
appointed to  see  your  real  interest:  oughtn't  I 
therefore  in  common  charity  to  point  it  out  to 
you?" 

He  faced  her  question  so  far  as  to  treat  it  as 
one.  "  What  do  you  know  of  my  disappoint- 
ment?" 

There  was  something  in  his  very  harshness 
that  even  helped  her,  for  it  added  at  this 
moment  to  her  sense  of  making  out  in  his 
narrowed  glare  a  couple  of  tears  of  rage.  "I 
know  everything." 

"  What  do  you  know  of  my  real  interest  ? " 
he  went  on  as  if  he  had  not  heard  her. 

"  I  know  enough  for  my  purpose  —  which  is 
to  offer  you  a  handsome  condition.  I  think  it's 
not  I  who  have  protected  the  happy  under- 
standing that  you  call  by  so  ugly  a  name ;  it's 


372  COVERING   END 

the  happy  understanding  that  has  put  me "  — 
she  gained  confidence  —  "well,  in  a  position. 
Do  drive  after  them,  if  you  like  —  but  catch 
up  with  them  only  to  forgive  them.  If  you'll 
do  that,  I'll  pay  your  price." 

The  particular  air  with  which,  a  minute  after 
Mrs.  Gracedew  had  spoken  these  words,  Mr. 
Prodmore  achieved  a  transfer  of  his  attention 
to  the  inside  of  his  hat  —  this  special  shade  of 
majesty  would  have  taxed  the  descriptive  re- 
sources of  the  most  accomplished  reporter.  It 
is  none  the  less  certain  that  he  appeared  for 
some  time  absorbed  in  that  receptacle  —  appeared 
at  last  to  breathe  into  it  hard.  "  What  do  you 
call  my  price  ?  " 

"Why,  the  sum  you  just  mentioned  —  fifty 
thousand !  "  Mrs.  Gracedew  feverishly  quavered. 

He  looked  at  her  as  if  stupefied.  "  That's  not 
my  price  —  and  it  never  for  a  moment  was !  " 
If  derision  can  be  dry,  Mr.  Prodmore's  was  of 
the  driest.  "Besides,"  he  rang  out,  "my  price 
is  up !  " 

She  caught  it  with  a  long  wail.     "  Up  ?  " 

Oh,  he  let  her  have  it  now  !  "  Seventy  thou- 
sand." 

She  turned  away  overwhelmed,  but  still  with 
voice  for  her  despair.  "  Oh,  deary  me  !  " 


COVERING   END  373 

Mr.  Prodmore  was  already  at  the  door,  from 
which  he  launched  his  ultimatum.  "  It's  to  take 
or  to  leave  !  " 

She  would  have  had  to  leave  it,  perhaps,  had 
not  something  happened  at  this  moment  to  nerve 
her  for  the  effort  of  staying  him  with  a  quick 
motion.  Captain  Yule  had  come  into  sight  on 
the  staircase  and,  after  just  faltering  at  what 
he  himself  saw,  had  marched  resolutely  enough 
down.  She  watched  him  arrive  —  watched  him 
with  an  attention  that  visibly  and  responsively 
excited  his  own ;  after  which  she  passed  nearer 
to  their  companion.  "  Seventy  thousand,  then !  " 
—  it  gleamed  between  them,  in  her  muffled  hiss, 
as  if  she  had  planted  a  dagger. 

Mr.  Prodmore,  to  do  him  justice,  took  his 
wound  in  front.  "  Seventy  thousand  —  done  !  " 
And,  without  another  look  at  Yule,  he  was  pres- 
ently heard  to  bang  the  outer  door  after  him 
for  a  sign. 


VIII 

THE  young  man,  meanwhile,  had  approached  in 
surprise.  "  He's  gone  ?  I've  been  looking  for 
him  ! " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  was  out  of  breath;  there  was 
a  disturbed  whiteness  of  bosom  in  her  which 
needed  time  to  subside  and  which  she  might 
have  appeared  to  retreat  before  him  on  purpose 
to  veil.  "  I  don't  think,  you  know,  that  you 
need  him  —  now." 

Clement  Yule  was  mystified.  "  Now  ?  " 
She  recovered  herself  enough  to  explain  —  made 
an  effort  at  least  to  be  plausible.  "I  mean  that 
—  if  you  don't  mind  —  you  must  deal  with  me. 
I've  arranged  with  Mr.  Prodmore  to  take  it 
over." 

Oh,  he  gave  her  no  help  !     "Take  what  over  ?  " 
She  looked  all  about  as  if  not  quite  thinking 
what  it  could  be   called  ;    at   last,  however,  she 
offered  with  a  smile  a  sort   of   substitute   for   a 
name.     "  Why,  your  debt. " 
374 


COVERING   END  375 

But  he  was  only  the  more  bewildered.  "  Can 
you  —  without  arranging  with  me?" 

She  turned  it  round,  but  as  if  merely  to  oblige 
him.  "That's  precisely  what  I  want  to  do." 
Then,  more  brightly,  as  she  thought  further : 
"That  is,  I  mean,  I  want  you  to  arrange  with 
me.  Surely  you  will,"  she  said  encouragingly. 

His  own  processes,  in  spite  of  a  marked  earnest- 
ness, were  much  less  rapid.  "But  if  I  arrange 
with  anybody " 

"  Yes  ?  "     She  cheerfully  waited. 

"  How  do  I  perform  my  engagement  ?  " 

"  The  one  to  Mr.  Prodmore  ?  " 

He  looked  surprised  at  her  speaking  as  if  he 
had  half-a-dozen.  "Yes  — that's  the  worst." 

"  Certainly  —  the  worst !  "  And  she  gave  a 
happy  laugh  that  made  him  stare. 

He  broke  into  quite  a  different  one.  "You 
speak  as  if  its  being  the  worst  made  it  the  best ! " 

"It  does  —  for  me.  You  don't,"  said  Mrs. 
Gracedew,  "perform  any  engagement." 

He  required  a  moment  to  take  it  in ;  then 
something  extraordinary  leaped  into  his  face. 
"He  lets  me  off?" 

Ah,  she  could  ring  out  now  !  "  He  lets  you 
off." 

It  lifted  him  high,  but  only  to  drop  him  with 


376  COVERING   END 

an  audible  thud.  "Oh,  I  see  —  I  lose  my 
house  !  " 

"  Dear,  no  —  that  doesn't  follow  !  "  She  spoke 
as  if  the  absurdity  he  indicated  were  the  last  con- 
ceivable, but  there  was  a  certain  want  of  sharp- 
ness of  edge  in  her  expression  of  the  alternative. 
"You  arrange  with  me  to  keep  it." 

There  was  quite  a  corresponding  want,  clearly, 
in  the  image  presented  to  the  Captain  —  of  which, 
for  a  moment,  he  seemed  with  difficulty  to  follow 
the  contour.  "  How  do  I  arrange  ?  " 

"  Well,  we  must  think,"  said  Mrs.  Gracedew ; 
"we  must  wait."  She  spoke  as  if  this  were  a 
detail  for  which  she  had  not  yet  had  much  atten- 
tion ;  only  bringing  out,  however,  the  next  in- 
stant in  an  encouraging  cry  and  as  if  it  were 
by  itself  almost  a  solution  :  "  We  must  find  some 
way  !  "  She  might  have  been  talking  to  a  rea- 
sonable child. 

But  even  reasonable  children  ask  too  many 
questions.  "  Yes  —  and  what  way  can  we  find  ?  " 
Clement  Yule,  glancing  about  him,  was  so  struck 
with  the  absence  of  ways  that  he  appeared  to 
remember  with  something  of  regret  how  different 
it  had  been  before.  "With  Prodmore  it  was 
simple  enough.  You  see  I  could  marry  his 
daughter." 


COVERING    END  377 

Mrs.  Gracedew  was  silent  just  long  enough  for 
her  soft  ironic  smile  to  fill  the  cup  of  the  pause. 
"Could  you?" 

It  was  as  if  he  had  tasted  in  the  words  the 
wine  at  the  brim ;  for  he  gave,  under  the  effect 
of  them,  a  sudden  headshake  and  an  awkward 
laugh.  "Well,  never  perhaps  that  exactly  — 
when  it  came  to  the  point.  But  I  had  to,  you 
see "  It  was  difficult  to  say  just  what. 

She  took  advantage  of  it,  looking  hard,  but 
not  seeing  at  all.  "You  had  to ?" 

"Well,"  he  repeated  ruefully,  "think  a  lot 
about  it.  You  didn't  suspect  that  ?  " 

Oh,  if  he  came  to  suspicions  she  could  only 
break  off !  "Don't  ask  me  too  many  questions." 

He  looked  an  instant  as  if  he  wondered  why. 
"But  isn't  this  just  the  moment  for  them?" 
He  fronted  her,  with  a  quickness  he  tried  to 
dissimulate,  from  the  other  side.  "  What  did 
you  suppose  ?  " 

She  looked  everywhere  but  into  his  face. 
"Why,  I  supposed  you  were  in  distress." 

He  was  very  grave.     "  About  his  terms  ?  " 

"  About  his  terms  of  course  I  "  she  laughed. 
"Not  about  his  religious  opinions." 

His  gratitude  was  too  great  for  gaiety.  "  You 
really,  in  your  beautiful  sympathy,  guessed  my 
fix?" 


378  COVERING    END 

But  she  declined  to  be  too  solemn.  "  Dear 
Captain  Yule,  it  all  quite  stuck  out  of  you  !  " 

"You  mean  I  floundered  like  a  drowning 
man ?  " 

Well,  she  consented  to  have  meant  that.  "  Till 
I  plunged  in  !  " 

He  appeared  there  for  a  few  seconds,  to  see 
her  again  take  the  jump  and  to  listen  again  to 
the  splash  ;  then,  with  an  odd,  sharp  impulse, 
he  turned  his  back.  "You  saved  me." 

She  wouldn't  deny  it  —  on  the  contrary. 
"  What  a  pity,  now,  /  haven't  a  daughter  !  " 

On  this  he  slowly  came  round  again.  "  What 
should  I  do  with  her  ?  " 

"You'd  treat  her,  I  hope,  better  than  you've 
treated  Miss  Prodmore." 

The  young  man  positively  coloured.  "But 
I  haven't  been  bad ?" 

The  sight  of  this  effect  of  her  small  joke 
produced  on  Mrs.  Gracedew's  part  an  emotion 
less  controllable  than  any  she  had  yet  felt. 
"  Oh,  you  delightful  goose  !  "  she  irrepressibly 
dropped. 

She  made  his  blush  deepen,  but  the  aggrava- 
tion was  a  relief.  "  Of  course  —  I'm  all  right, 
and  there's  only  one  pity  in  the  matter.  I've 
nothing  —  nothing  whatever,  not  a  scrap  of  ser- 


COVERING  END  379 

vice  nor  a  thing  you'd  care  for  —  to  offer  you  in 
compensation." 

She  looked  at  him  ever  so  kindly.  "  I'm  not, 
as  they  say,  'on  the  make.'"  Never  had  he 
been  put  right  with  a  lighter  hand.  "I  didn't 
do  it  for  payment." 

"Then  what  did  you  do  it  for?" 

For  something,  it  might  have  seemed,  as  her 
eyes  dropped  and  strayed,  that  had  got  brushed 
into  a  crevice  of  the  old  pavement.  "Because 
I  hated  Mr.  Prodmore." 

He  conscientiously  demurred.  "So  much  as 
all  that?" 

"  Oh,  well,"  she  replied  impatiently,  "  of 
course  you  also  know  how  much  I  like  the 
house.  My  hates  and  my  likes,"  she  subtly 
explained,  "can  never  live  together.  I  get  one 
of  them  out.  The  one  this  time  was  that  man." 

He  showed  a  candour  of  interest.  "Yes  — 
you  got  him  out.  Yes  —  I  saw  him  go."  And 
his  inner  vision  appeared  to  attend  for  some 
moments  Mr.  Prodmore's  departure.  "But  how 
did  you  do  it?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  Women !"  Mrs. 

Gracedew  but  vaguely  sketched  it. 

A  touch  or  two,  however,  for  that  subject, 
could  of  course  almost  always  suffice.  "  Pre- 


380  COVEBING   END 

cisely  —  women.  May  I  smoke  again?"  Clem- 
ent Yule  abruptly  asked. 

"Certainly.  But  I  managed  Mr.  Prodmore," 
she  laughed  as  he  re-lighted,  "without  ciga- 
rettes." 

Her  companion  puffed.  "  I  couldn't  manage 
him." 

"So  I  saw!" 

"  I  couldn't  get  him  out." 

"  So  he  saw  !  " 

Captain  Yule,  for  a  little,  lost  himself  in  his 
smoke.  "  Where  is  he  gone  ?  " 

"I  haven't  the  least  idea.  But  I  meet  him 
again,"  she  hastened  to  add  —  "very  soon." 

"And  when  do  you  meet  me?" 

"Why,  whenever  you'll  come  to  see  me." 
For  the  twentieth  time  she  gathered  herself  as 
if  the  words  she  had  just  spoken  were  quite 
her  last  hand.  "At  present,  you  see,  I  have  a 
train  to  catch." 

Absorbed  in  the  trivial  act  that  engaged  him, 
he  gave  her  no  help.  "A  train?" 

"Surely.     I  didn't  walk." 

"  No  ;  but  even  trains !  "  His  eyes  clung 

to  her  now.  "  You  fly  ?  " 

"I  try  to.     Good-bye." 

He  had  got  between  her  and  the  door  of  de- 


COVERING    END  381 

parture  quite  as,  on  her  attempt  to  quit  him 
half  an  hour  before,  he  had  anticipated  her 
approach  to  the  stairs  ;  and  in  this  position  he 
took  no  notice  of  her  farewell.  "  I  said  just 
now  that  I  had  nothing  to  offer  you.  But  of 
course  I've  the  house  itself." 

"  The  house  ?  "  She  stared.  "  Why,  I've  got 
it?" 

"Got  it?" 

"All  in  my  head,  I  mean.  That's  all  I 
want."  She  had  not  yet,  save  to  Mr.  Prod- 
more,  made  quite  so  light  of  it. 

This  had  its  action  in  his  markedly  longer 
face.  "  Why,  I  thought  you  loved  it  so  !  " 

Ah,  she  was  perfectly  consistent.  "  I  love  it 
far  too  much  to  deprive  you  of  it." 

Yet  Clement  Yule  could  in  a  fashion  meet 
her.  "  Oh,  it  wouldn't  be  depriving !  " 

She  altogether  protested.  "Not  to  turn  you 
out ?" 

"Dear  lady,  I've  never  been  in!" 

Oh,  she  was  none  the  less  downright. 
"  You're  in  now  —  I've  put  you,  and  you  must 
stay."  He  looked  round  so  woefully,  however, 
that  she  presently  attenuated.  "  I  don't  mean 
all  the  while,  but  long  enough !  " 

"  Long  enough  for  what  ?  " 


382  COVEIUNG   END 

"For  me  to  feel  you're  here." 

"And  how  long  will  that  take?" 

"Well,  you  think  me  very  fast — but  some- 
times I'm  slow.  I  told  you  just  now,  at  any 
rate,"  she  went  on,  "that  I  had  arranged  you 
should  lose  nothing.  Is  the  very  next  thing  I 
do,  then,  to  make  you  lose  everything?" 

"It  isn't  a  question  of  what  I  lose,"  the 
young  man  anxiously  cried  ;  "  it's  a  question  of 
what  I  do!  What  have  I  done  to  find  it  all 
so  plain?"  Fate  was  really  —  fate  reversed, 
improved,  and  unnatural  —  too  much  for  him, 
and  his  heated  young  face  showed  honest  stupe- 
faction. "I  haven't  lifted  a  finger.  It's  you 
who  have  done  all." 

"Yes,  but  if  you're  just  where  you  were 
before,  how  in  the  world  are  you  saved  ?  "  She 
put  it  to  him  with  still  superior  lucidity. 

"  By  my  life's  being  my  own  again  —  to  do 
what  I  want." 

"  What  you  '  want ' "  —  Mrs.  Gracedew's  hand- 
some uplifted  head  had  it  all  there,  every  inch 
of  it  —  "is  to  keep  your  house." 

"Ah,  but  only,"  he  perfectly  assented,  "if, 
as  you  said,  you  find  a  way  !  " 

"  I  have  found  a  way  —  and  there  the  way  is  : 
for  me  just  simply  not  to  touch  the  place. 


COVEKING   END  383 

What  you  'want,'"  she  argued  more  closely, 
"  is  what  made  you  give  in  to  Prodmore.  What 
you  'want'  is  these  walls  and  these  acres. 
What  you  'want'  is  to  take  the  way  I  first 
showed  you." 

Her  companion's  eyes,  quitting  for  the  pur- 
pose her  face,  looked  to  the  quarter  marked  by 
her  last  words '  as  at  an  horizon  now  remote. 
"Why,  the  way  you  first  showed  me  was  to 
marry  Cora  !  " 

She  had  to  admit  it,  but  as  little  as  possible. 
"  Practically  —  yes. " 

"  Well,  it's  just  '  practically '  that  I  can't !  " 

"I  didn't  know  that  then,"  said  Mrs.  Grace- 
dew.  "You  didn't  tell  me." 

He  passed,  with  an  approach  to  a  grimace, 
his  hand  over  the  back  of  his  head.  "  I  felt 
a  delicacy  !  " 

"I  didn't  even  know  that."  She  spoke  it 
almost  sadly. 

"It  didn't  strike  you  that  I  might?" 

She  thought  a  moment.  "No."  She  thought 
again.  "  No.  But  don't  quarrel  with  me  about 
it  now!" 

"Quarrel  with  you?"  he  looked  amazement. 

She  laughed,  but  she  had  changed  colour.  "  Cora, 
at  any  rate,  felt  no  delicacy.  Cora  told  me." 


384  COVERING  END 

Clement  Yule  fairly  gaped.  "Then  she  did 
know ?  " 

"  She  knew  all ;  and  if  her  father  said  she 
didn't,  he  simply  told  you  what  was  not."  She 
frankly  gave  him  this,  but  the  next  minute,  as 
if  she  had  startled  him  more  than  she  meant, 
she  jumped  to  reassurance.  "  It  was  quite  right 
of  her.  She  would  have  refused  you." 

The  young  man  stared.  "  Oh  ! "  He  was 
quick,  however,  to  show — by  an  amusement 
perhaps  a  trifle  over-done  —  that  he  felt  no  per- 
sonal wound.  "  Do  you  call  that  quite  right  ?  " 

Mrs.  Gracedew  looked  at  it  again.  "  For  her 
— yes  ;  and  for  Prodmore." 

"Oh,  for  Prodmore"  —  his  laugh  grew  more 
grim  —  "  with  all  my  heart  !  " 

This,  then, — her  kind  eyes  seemed  to  drop  it 
upon  him,  —  was  all  she  meant.  "  To  stay  at  your 
post  —  that  was  the  way  I  showed  you." 

He  had  come  round  to  it  now,  as  mechanically, 
in  intenser  thought,  he  smoothed  down  the  thick 
hair  he  had  rubbed  up  ;  but  his  face  soon  enough 
gave  out,  in  wonder  and  pain,  that  his  freedom 
was  somehow  only  a  new  predicament.  "How 
can  I  take  any  way  at  all,  dear  lady ?  " 

"  If  I  only  stick  here  in  your  path  ?  "  She  had 
taken  him  straight  up,  and  with  spirit ;  and  the 


COVERING   END  385 

same  spirit  bore  her  to  the  end.  "  I  won't  stick 
a  moment  more  !  Haven't  I  been  trying  this  age 
to  leave  you  ?  " 

Clement  Yule,  for  all  answer,  caught  her  sharply, 
in  her  passage,  by  the  arm.  "  You  surrender  your 
rights  ?  "  He  was  for  an  instant  almost  terrible. 

She  quite  turned  pale  with  it.  "  Weren't  you 
ready  to  surrender  yours  f  " 

"I  hadn't  any,  so  it  was  deuced  easy.  I  hadn't 
paid  for  them." 

Oh  that,  she  let  him  see, —  even  though  with 
his  continued  grasp  he  might  hurt  her,  —  had 
nothing  in  it  !  "  Your  ancestors  had  paid  :  it's 
the  same  thing."  Erect  there  in  the  brightness  of 
her  triumph  and  the  force  of  her  logic,  she  must 
yet,  to  anticipate  his  return,  take  a  stride  —  like 
a  sudden  dip  into  a  gully  and  the  scramble  up  on 
the  other  bank  —  that  put  her  dignity  to  the  test. 
"  You're  just,  in  a  manner,  my  tenant." 

"  But  how  can  I  treat  that  as  such  a  mere  de- 
tail ?  I'm  your  tenant  on  what  terms  ?  " 

"  Oh,  any  terms  —  choose  them  for  yourself  !  " 
She  made  an  attempt  to  free  her  arm  —  gave  it  a 
small  vain  shake.  Then,  as  if  to  bribe  him  to 
let  her  go  :  "  You  can  write  me  about  them." 

He  appeared  to  consider  it.  "To  Missoura 
Top?" 

2c 


386  COVERING  END 

She  fully  assented,  "I  go  right  back."  As  if 
it  had  put  him  off  his  guard  she  broke  away. 
"  Farewell !  " 

She  broke  away,  but  he  broke  faster,  and  once 
more,  nearer  the  door,  he  had  barred  her  escape. 
"  Just  one  little  moment,  please.  If  you  won't 
tell  me  your  own  terms,  you  must  at  least  tell  me 
Prodmore's." 

Ah,  the  fiend  —  she  could  never  squeeze  past 
that!  All  she  could  do,  for  the  instant,  was  to 
reverberate  foolishly  "  Prodmore's  ?  " 

But  there  was  nothing  foolish,  at  last,  about  him. 
"How  you  did  it  —  how  you  managed  him." 
His  feet  were  firm  while  he  waited,  though  he 
had  to  wait  some  time.  "  You  bought  him  out  ?  " 

She  made  less  of  it  than,  clearly,  he  had  ever 
heard  made  of  a  stroke  of  business  ;  it  might  have 
been  a  case  of  his  owing  her  ninepence.  "I 
bought  him  out." 

He  wanted  at  least  the  exact  sum.  "  For  how 
much  ?  "  Her  silence  seemed  to  say  that  she  had 
made  no  note  of  it,  but  his  pressure  only  increased. 
"  I  really  must  know." 

She  continued  to  try  to  treat  it  as  if  she  had 
merely  paid  for  his  cab  —  she  put  even  what 
she  could  of  that  suggestion  into  a  tender,  help- 
less, obstinate  headshake.  "  You  shall  never 
Jmow  !  " 


COVERING   END  387 

The  only  thing  his  own  manner  met  was  the 
obstinacy.  "I'll  get  it  from  him!" 

She  repeated  her  headshake,  but  with  a  world 
of  sadness  added,  "  Get  it  if  you  can  !  " 

He  looked  into  her  eyes  now  as  if  it  was 
the  sadness  that  struck  him  most.  "  He  won't 
say,  because  he  did  you  ?  " 

They  showed  each  other,  on  this,  the  least 
separated  faces  yet.  "He'll  never,  never  say." 

The  confidence  in  it  was  so  tender  that  it 
sounded  almost  like  pity,  and  the  young  man 
took  it  up  with  all  the  flush  of  the  sense  that 
pity  could  be  but  for  him.  This  sense  broke 
full  in  her  face.  "  The  scoundrel  !  " 

"  Not  a  bit  !  "  she  returned,  with  equal  pas- 
sion —  "I  was  only  too  clever  for  him  !  "  The 
thought  of  it  was  again  an  exaltation  in  which 
she  pushed  her  friend  aside.  "  So  let  me  go  !  " 

The  push  was  like  a  jar  that  made  the  vessel 
overflow,  and  he  was  before  her  now  as  if  he 
stretched  across  the  hall.  "  With  the  heroic 
view  of  your  power  and  the  barren  beauty  of 
your  sacrifice  ?  You  pour  out  money,  you  move 
a  mountain,  and  to  let  you  'go,'  to  close  the 
door  fast  behind  you,  is  all  I  can  figure  out 
to  do  for  you  ? "  His  emotion  trembled  out  of 
him  with  the  stammer  of  a  new  language,  but 


388  COVERING   END 

it  was  as  if  in  a  minute  or  two  he  had  thrown 
over  all  consciousness.  "You're  the  most  gen- 
erous —  you're  the  noblest  of  women !  The 
wonderful  chance  that  brought  you  here !  " 

His  own  arm  was  grasped  now  —  she  knew 
better  than  he  about  the  wonderful  chance.  "  It 
brought  you  at  the  same  happy  hour !  I've 
done  what  I  liked,"  she  went  on  very  simply  ; 
"and  the  only  way  to  thank  me  is  to  believe  it." 

"  You've  done  it  for  a  proud,  poor  man  "  —  his 
answer  was  quite  as  direct.  "  He  has  nothing 
—  in  the  light  of  such  a  magic  as  yours  —  either 
to  give  or  to  hope  ;  but  you've  made  him,  in 
a  little  miraculous  hour,  think  of  you " 

He  stumbled  with  the  rush  of  things,  and 
if  silence  can,  in  its  way,  be  active,  there  was 
a  collapse  too,  for  an  instant,  on  her  closed  lips. 
These  lips,  however,  she  at  last  opened.  "  How 
have  I  made  him  think  of  me  ?  " 

"  As  he  has  thought  of  no  other  woman  ! " 
He  had  personal  possession  of  her  now,  and  it 
broke,  as  he  pressed  her,  as  he  pleaded,  the  help- 
less fall  of  his  eloquence.  "Mrs.  Gracedew  — 
don't  leave  me."  He  jerked  his  head  passion- 
ately at  the  whole  place  and  the  yellow  after- 
noon. "  If  you  made  me  care " 

"  It  was  surely  that  you  had  made  me  first !  " 


COVERING   END  389 

She  laughed,  and  her  laugh  disengaged  her,  so 
that  before  he  could  reply  she  had  again  put 
space  between  them. 

He  accepted  the  space  now  —  he  appeared  so 
sure  of  his  point.  "  Then  let  me  go  on  caring. 
When  I  asked  you  awhile  back  for  some  pos- 
sible adjustment  to  my  new  source  of  credit, 
you  simply  put  off  the  question  —  told  me  I 
must  trust  to  time  for  it.  Well,"  said  Clement 
Yule,  "I've  trusted  to  time  so  effectually  that 
ten  little  minutes  have  made  me  find  it.  I've 
found  it  because  I've  so  quickly  found  you.  May 
I,  Mrs.  Gracedew,  keep  all  that  I've  found  ?  I 
offer  you  in  return  the  only  thing  I  have  to  give 
—  I  offer  you  my  hand  and  my  life." 

She  held  him  off,  across  the  hall,  for  a  time 
almost  out  of  proportion  to  the  previous  wait 
he  had  just  made  so  little  of.  Then  at  last  also, 
when  she  answered,  it  might  have  passed  for  a 
plea  for  further  postponement,  even  for  a  plea 

for  mercy.  "  Ah,  Captain  Yule !"  But  she 

turned  suddenly  off  :  the  flower  had  been  nipped 
in  the  bud  by  the  re-entrance  of  Chivers,  at  whom 
his  master  veritably  glowered. 

"  What  the  devil  is  it  ?  " 

The  old  man  showed  the  shock,  but  he  had  his 
duty.  "Another  party," 


390  COVERING   END 

Mrs.  Gracedew,  at  this,  wheeled  round.  "  The 
'  party  up '  !  "  It  brought  back  her  voice  —  in- 
deed, all  her  gaiety.  And  her  gaiety  was  always 
determinant.  "  Show  them  in." 

Clement  Yule's  face  fell  while  Chivers  pro- 
ceeded to  obey.  "  You'll  have  them  ?  "  he  wailed 
across  the  hall. 

"  Ah  I  mayn't  I  be  proud  of  my  house  ?  "  she 
tossed  back  at  him. 

At  this,  radiant,  he  had  rushed  at  her.  "  Then 
you  accept ?  " 

Her  raised  hand  checked  him.     "  Hush  !  " 

He  fell  back  —  the  party  was  there.  Chivers 
ushered  it  as  he  had  ushered  the  other,  making 
the  most,  this  time,  of  more  scanty  material  — 
four  persons  so  spectacled,  satchelled,  shawled, 
and  handbooked  that  they  testified  on  the  spot 
to  a  particular  foreign  origin  and  presented 
themselves  indeed  very  much  as  tourists  who, 
at  an  hotel,  casting  up  the  promise  of  comfort 
or  the  portent  of  cost,  take  possession,  while 
they  wait  for  their  keys,  with  expert  looks  and 
free  sounds.  Clement  Yule,  who  had  receded, 
effacing  himself,  to  the  quarter  opposed  to  that 
of  his  companion,  addressed  to  their  visitors  a 
covert  but  dismayed  stare  and  then,  edging 
round,  in  his  agitation,  to  the  rear,  instinctively 


COVERING   END  391 

sought  relief  by  escape  through  the  open  pas- 
sage. One  of  the  invaders  meanwhile  —  a  broad- 
faced  gentleman  with  long  hair  tucked  behind 
his  ears  and  a  ring  on  each  forefinger  —  had 
lost  no  time  in  showing  he  knew  where  to 
begin.  He  began  at  the  top  —  the  proper  place, 
and  took  in  the  dark  pictures  ranged  above  the 
tapestry.  "  Olt  vamily  bortraits  ?  " — he  appealed 
to  Chivers  and  spoke  very  loud. 

Chivers  rose  to  the  occasion  and,  gracefully  paw- 
ing the  air,  began  also  at  the  beginning.  "  Dame 
Dorothy  Yule  —  who  lived  to  a  hundred  and  one." 

"  A  hundred  and  one  —  ach  so  !  "  broke,  with 
a  resigned  absence  of  criticism,  from  each  of 
the  interested  group  ;  another  member  of  which, 
however,  indicated  with  a  somewhat  fatigued 
skip  the  central  figure  of  the  series,  the  person- 
age with  the  long  white  legs  that  Mrs.  Grace- 
dew  had  invited  the  previous  inquirers  to  remark. 
"  Who's  dis  ?  "  the  present  inquirer  asked. 

The  question  affected  the  lovely  lady  over  by 
the  fireplace  as  the  trumpet  of  battle  affects  a 
generous  steed.  She  flashed  on  the  instant  into 
the  middle  of  the  hall  and  into  the  friendliest 
and  most  familiar  relation  with  everyone  and 
with  everything.  "John  Anthony  Yule,  sir, — 
who  passed  away,  poor  duck,  in  his  flower  !  " 


392  COVERING   END 

They  met  her  with  low  salutations,  a  sweep  of 
ugly  shawls,  and  a  brush  of  queer  German  hats  : 
she  had  issued,  to  their  glazed  convergence,  from 
the  dusk  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  shade  of 
high  pieces,  and  now  stood  there,  beautiful  and 
human  and  happy,  in  a  light  that,  whatever  it 
was  for  themselves,  the  very  breadth  of  their 
attention,  the  expression  of  their  serious  faces, 
converted  straightway  for  her  into  a  new,  and 
oh  !  into  the  right,  one.  To  a  detached  observer 
of  the  whole  it  would  have  been  promptly  clear 
that  she  found  herself  striking  these  good  people 
very  much  as  the  lawful  heir  had,  half  an  hour 
before,  struck  another  stranger  —  that  she  pro- 
duced in  them,  in  her  setting  of  assured  antiquity, 
quite  the  romantic  vibration  that  she  had  re- 
sponded to  in  the  presence  of  that  personage. 
They  read  her  as  she  read  Am,  and  a  bright  and 
deepening  cheer,  reflected  dimly  in  their  thick 
thoroughness,  went  out  from  her  as  she  accepted 
their  reading.  An  impression  was  exchanged, 
for  the  minute,  from  side  to  side  —  their  grave 
admiration  of  the  finest  feature  of  the  curious 
house  and  the  deep  free  radiance  of  her  silent, 
grateful  "  Why  not  ?  "  It  made  a  passage  of 
some  intensity  and  some  duration,  of  which  the 
effect,  indeed,  the  next  minute,  was  to  cause  the 


COVERING   END  393 

only  lady  of  the  party  —  a  matron  of  rich  Jewish 
type,  with  small  nippers  on  a  huge  nose  and  a 
face  out  of  proportion  to  her  little  Freischiitz  hat 
—  to  break  the  spell  by  an  uneasy  turn  and  a  stray 
glance  at  one  of  the  other  pictures.  "Who's  dat  ?  " 
"  That  ? "  The  picture  chanced  to  be  a  por- 
trait over  the  wide  arch,  and  something  happened, 
at  the  very  moment,  to  arrest  Mrs.  Gracedew's 
eyes  rather  above  than  below.  What  took  place, 
in  a  word,  was  that  Clement  Yule,  already  fidget- 
ing in  his  impatience  back  from  the  front,  just 
occupied  the  arch,  completed  her  thought,  and 
filled  her  vision.  "  Oh,  that's  my  future  hus- 
band ! "  He  caught  the  words,  but  answered 
them  only  by  a  long  look  at  her  as  he  moved, 
with  a  checked  wildness  of  which  she  alone,  of 
all  the  spectators,  had  a  sense,  straight  across  the 
hall  again  and  to  the  other  opening.  He  paused 
there  as  he  had  done  before,  then  with  a  last 
dumb  appeal  to  her  dropped  into  the  court  and 
passed  into  the  garden.  Mrs.  Gracedew,  already 
so  wonderful  to  their  visitors,  was,  before  she 
followed  him,  wonderful  with  a  greater  wonder 
to  poor  Chivers.  "You  dear  old  thing  —  I  give 
it  all  back  to  you  !  " 


WORKS  BY  HENRY  JAMES. 


EMBARRASSMENTS. 

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"  Mr.  Henry  James  has  produced  no  more  clever  and  subtle  work  than  it  to  be  found 
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portrait  of  Geoffrey  Dowling  is  a  masterpiece  of  characterization.  And  there  are  sen- 
tences, unobtrusive  asides,  which  flash  with  the  brilliancy  of  true  wit." — New  York 
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"  Mr.  James's  writings  are  distinctively  works  of  art.  One  and  all  of  them  appeal 
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ideals  of  literature.  An  acquaintance  with  Henry  James  means  an  appreciation  of  the 
finer  style  of  written  English,  and  an  inhalation  of  the  atmosphere  of  purest  English 
literature.  No  list  of  books  for  the  summer  will  be  complete  without '  Embarrassments.' " 
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" '  The  Other  House '  shows  Henry  James  at  his  best.  That  best  is  a  putting  into 
words  of  an  exquisite  comprehension  of  motives  and  shades  of  thought,  a  magic  grasp  of 
character  variations,  a  bringing  to  the  surface  of  hidden  nerve  fibres  ever  unsuspected 
yet  tremendously  potent."  —  Chicago  Daily  News. 


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guage. .  .  .  From  first  to  last  we  find  no  weakness  in  the  book ;  the  drama  works  simply 
and  naturally;  the  causes  and  effects  are  logically  related;  the  theme  is  made  literature 
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THE  REVERBERATOR. 

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The  public  will  be  glad  to  find  Mr.  James  in  his  best  vein.  One  is  thankful  again 
that  there  is  so  brilliant  an  American  author  to  give  us  entertaining  sketches  of  life.  — 
Boston  Herald. 

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It  is  as  a  short  story  writer  that  we  think  Mr.  James  appears  at  his  best,  and  in  this 
volume  he  may  be  read  in  his  most  attractive  and  most  artistic  vein.  —  Boston  Saturday 
Evening  Gazette. 

Mr.  Henry  James  is  at  his  best  in  "  The  Aspern  Papers."  .  .  .  For  careful  finish, 
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PARTIAL  PORTRAITS. 

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charm  of  style  which  pervades  the  book,  and  the  kind  appreciation  the  author  evinces  of 
the  finer  and  subtler  qualities  of  the  authors  with  whom  he  deals.  — Boston  Saturday 
Evening  Gazette. 

THE  BOSTONIANS. 

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Mr.  James's  novels,  but  it  is  one  of  the  most  important  of  recent  contributions  to  litera- 
ture. —  Boston  Courier. 

A  LONDON  LIFE, 

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